


Perchance To Dream

by fractalserpentine, HopeofDawn



Series: A Stitch In Time [13]
Category: Legacy of Kain
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-13
Updated: 2011-08-13
Packaged: 2017-10-22 13:55:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 22,195
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/238763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fractalserpentine/pseuds/fractalserpentine, https://archiveofourown.org/users/HopeofDawn/pseuds/HopeofDawn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Raziel falls victim to an insidious spell, and dreams of lost brethren ....</p>
            </blockquote>





	Perchance To Dream

**Author's Note:**

> A bit of background explanation: this was originally written for a long-running crossover RPG called Multiverse Haven (now sadly defunct). The basic premise of the game was that characters had been pulled from multiple worlds and marked as Chosen, in order to eventually restore a dying multiverse. The main storyline takes place in Nosgoth, however there may be occasional references to characters, magic systems and some borrowed vampire terminology from other canon sources.
> 
> Warning: these are feudal-era vampires, who survive by hunting/taking what they need, and who have also been corrupted by the Taint. There may be references and/or scenes of fairly brutal treatment of humans as slaves/livestock. Such is life in a world where vampires rule ...

Raziel led them from the blood-drenched darkness, and into the thin, false light of predawn.

There was little that could be done for Vivec's wing; the break was a bad one. The Ancient navigated the confines of the tunnels slowly, gradually paling as the heat of the fight faded and pain sank deep its talons. He would require more attention than could be given on the battlefield, and as human scavengers were already gathering to pick the dead clean of their meager possessions, Vivec could be left neither alone nor at the site of the massacre.

Some of the bodies that littered the square were still frozen, rimmed in hoarfrost and contorted in the agonies of their last moments. But of Tarrant himself, there was no trace.

Ordering all three Ancients to proceed afoot to the cathedral, Raziel shadowed them from above, until the healers he had summoned winged into view. The temple's great central apse was almost empty now of Ancients; only a single guard stood watch over the Reaver's latticework cask. Even the smeared blood on the floor was rapidly disappearing beneath scrubbing rags -- a handful of white-clad human servants worked in rays of muted light cast through the stained glass by the rising sun. Raziel's passage added to their duties, for his every step tracked behind a thin rim of gore.

The Ancients' circular wind-chamber was quiet, but as Raziel entered, the breeze began to issue once more through vents under Raziel's boots. The air dried further the blood on his skin, making a caked layer that itched uncomfortably, but the zephyr also filled his wings and pressed him easily aloft. With scarcely a few hard wing-beats, Raziel touched down lightly at the landing that lead to the bathing antechamber. Despite his weariness, the prospect of resting whilst covered in gore held little appeal--not when such luxuries were so close to hand.

There was no attendant here now, simply a row of empty hooks for the hanging of robes. Through the haze of steam, the water that welled in the pools beyond the connecting arches seemed bluer than Raziel recalled, yet something of it was oddly familiar. Perhaps it was simply that he remembered the layout of the pools -- they had changed little in three years -- or the scent of clean, warmed water drawn up from the shadowed depths.

Raziel's armor clung to his skin, dried blood and gore thick as glue, and each piece had to be peeled off, pried from him. Eschewing the fragile hooks, he discarded segments of crusted, battered armor to the floor, leaving a trail of the implements of war behind him. The water, as he stepped down, was warmer than blood, hot against Raziel's deathly-chilled skin -- a tangible reminder of how long it had been since he'd fed. When had he last taken nourishment? Perhaps he should investigate a wall niche, or summon assistance but... something about the circular pool beckoned.

He sank down into the water with a sigh of relief, once again marveling at the silken texture of the liquid, so different from the burning of the Abyss ... a chill shivered over his skin, and he shook the unwelcome memory away. Unfurling his wings, Raziel sluiced water over his skin, washing the worst of the blood and grime away. Crimson swirls twined into the currents and disappeared, leaving ivory-pale skin behind as he moved to the deepest part of the bathing pool, feeling leaden weariness drag at his very bones. He had pushed himself too hard for too long, it seemed--even vampiric stamina had its limits, and the events of the last few nights had tested all of them.

Of late, it had felt as if this whole mad venture was on the verge of spiraling out of control, with only Raziel's hand upon the reins, exerting his will in an attempt to control the forces of history and things yet to be. Was this what Kain had felt when faced with his impossible choice, all those centuries ago?

And yet, despite his missteps, Kain had prevailed. Thus Raziel would do the same; vague misgivings about the future were not cause enough to break the oaths he had made to his Clan. They had suffered enough for his sake ....

Despite his dark thoughts, the warmth of the water was a potent soporific, sinking into aching, new-healed flesh, the tiny bubbles caressing his wings. Raziel sank deeper, closing his eyes and thinking only of the warmth, the soothing darkness underneath the water. Even a transient peace such as this was something to be cherished ....

Blood dried black twined from his skin into the sapphire quiet. The trickles joined, became streams, became more. And Raziel followed that river down

\-- and rested,

and the currents tore apart and spun out the tendrils of black, and rooted them in the unseen depths; and they reached up dark-bladed fronds, strange leaf-blade ribbons buoyed by agar-slippery hollow nodes, which stretched to gather the faintest glimmer of light that dared filter down; and in their twisting shadows, after an age like the aeons of man -- movement.

It was sharper, more sudden than the drift-wash sway of the storm-weed: a flash of scale or fin perhaps, a disturbance of the water at the corner of Raziel's awareness.

Curled and floating in the silent depths, the movement was more felt than seen. Slowly, closed eyes opened.

 _Rahab?_ Raziel Whispered silently, without knowing why. His brother was gone, all of them were--dead and more than dead, all by his hand. The midnight waters made no reply, fronds wreathing around his form in a shadowed cocoon. Sunk deep, he felt no urge to leave this illusory shelter--the old instincts that should have led him to struggle free of the deadly water were for once utterly, completely silent.

The name echoed, resonating oddly within the confines of Raziel's mind, as if he both sent and received the Whisper. Vision brought little better clarity, for though the water was clear, eyes adapted to thin and more rarefied atmospheres were not well-suited to perception here. Still, Raziel could make out patterns of light and shadow. Lithe fragments of the latter danced through the dimness. Though time itself was swallowed, as a river vanishes into an inland sea, those flitting shapes seemed unreal in their swiftness, their agility, here in their domain.

There was another faint disturbance in the water, a swift ripple between the blades of black, and this time it seemed much closer -- and directly behind Raziel. _You return to these waters oftener than I would suppose._ That echoed strangely, too -- some part of Raziel playing both speaker and listener.

 _Do I?_ In truth, Raziel wasn't sure where he was. It did not seem important, somehow ....

 _It is ... peaceful here. Quiet._ The words echoed in the silence of his mind, as if in affirmation. Dimly, fossilized deep beneath layers of memory, was the faintest echo ... screaming without sound, echoes of agony. He flinched slightly in reaction--then it faded away, deeper into the water. Idly, he reached out, twining talons into storm-weed, feeling currents move across his skin. _Where are you?_

A certain kind of amusement, dark like the water, rippled. _Where? Why, here, Raziel -- and everywhere. I swim in each pulse of your veins, coil in the jelly that wreaths the steel of your spine, dwell in the liquid that floods your lungs._ The sense of movement in the water, of something long and limber passing, from left to right behind Raziel's back, was close this time, perhaps even within reach. _The answer you should more rightly seek, Brother, is not of the nature of this medium that brakes your descent... but rather why you fell at all._

Raziel frowned slightly, a certain impatience rising past that immersive peace. _Riddles, Rahab?_ His brother had always been fond of puzzles, and of wordplay, he remembered. Rahab and Melchiah, especially, had oft diverted themselves with twistings of logic and philosophy ....

He uncurled a bit, sculling hands through the water in an attempt to right himself--an effort made more difficult by the realization that he was not entirely sure which direction was up, or if it even mattered. His movements were clumsy, ill-favored next to the flickering, lithe movements of his unseen companions. _I do not remember ..._ How had he gotten to this place? There was something tugging at him ... something left undone.

Frowning more fiercely, he kicked outward, using what he had learned in the drowned Abbey to propel himself through the water, towards the diffused light that glimmered down through the fronds. It was the merest shadow of the grace that the Rahabim had possessed, he knew ... but it was sufficient to make some progress.

Raziel's hard kick sent the shadows scattering, but they circled and regrouped soon enough, trailing alongside, curious -- or predatory. The closer form kept pace as Raziel found a rhythm to his strokes -- which took a moment, for this body was unused to swimming, and in the resistance of the water was the sense-memory laid down by another physical form: one thinner, lighter, its wings a tattered cape that dragged behind. _Memory is... difficult here,_ agreed the echo, as it is difficult to measure the river's breadth from within its waters. A pause, and then the long undulation ghosted closer, a turbulence in the water just behind Raziel, slightly to his left. A cool, slightly tacky touch passed up the thick wrist-spar of one of his wings. _Though granted, your swimming is somewhat improved._

 _You shall turn my head with such lavish compliments, Rahab,_ Raziel answered dryly, obliquely reassured by his brother's presence, even obscured as it was. Even the touch upon tightly folded wings--so useless here, in these environs, yet no less precious--did not provoke any retaliation.

He swam for a time, then paused, somewhat annoyed. _Is there no sky in this place?_ he asked his shadowy escort, somewhat peeved. The shafts of lights that these unnamed lurkers took such pains to avoid must come from *somewhere*, did they not?

The reply, when it came, was thick with irony and surprise both. _You have no idea, my brother, how deep we truly are._ An abrupt pulse of the water around him, and then smooth-skinned arms were enwrapping Raziel's waist, webbed and gripping-textured talons splaying over his lowest ribs. _This way, Raziel._

Acceleration was sudden and startling, the water abruptly a solid pressure against Raziel's face and chest. His heels scraped over silvery-slick scales; Rahab's body seemed very long, very supple, and each stroke of his -- legs? tail? -- propelled them both as far and as fast as a dozen of Raziel's kicks. The forest thinned around them, dark tips of waving fronds appearing overhead, sweeping to the side, and disappearing into the gloom behind. The water grew lighter, and as it did the flitting shadows nearby fell away, one by one.

It was impossible to gasp under water, but Raziel held on to those arms with a near-crushing grip as the underwater world rushed by him in a blur of light and shadow. _...Rahab!_ It was a timely reminder that this was his brother's element indeed .... how deep *had* he gone?

The light intensified by degrees, until the water they traversed had turned translucently pale, aqua shimmers rippling above them. There was a subtle flinch in the slick-skinned body pressed to his back; and they abruptly veered to the side, paralleling the surface rather than approaching it.

 _Rahab, what ...?_ And then Raziel realized. _Ah--of course. The sun._ Regret seeped through the Whispered words. _My apologies, brother. I did not think._

They passed into a pool of shadow--and Rahab changed direction once more, gliding lithely upward. They breached the surface of the water together, waves rippling outward. Raziel blinked water from his eyes, gazing about him; and realized they had surfaced in a rocky grotto, sheer overhanging cliffs of mossy rock sheltering them from the glare of the sun.

On the contrary, Raziel; Rahab cleared the water from his throat, and the sound was raspy with the liquid, but his tenor laugh was as clear and sweet as any siren's, "-- you think far too much." His arms slipped from around Raziel; the silvery-blue skin of those limbs was darkened and cracked in a long stripe, elbow to hand, where the light had fallen too brightly upon it. As Raziel turned his head, shaking the obfuscating water from his eyes, he saw clearly -- Rahab's long body, finned and scaled, marbled in a palate of violet and green and every shade of blue in the heart of the sea. His brother's smile was a shark's, quick and ancient and very sharp.

And then Rahab ducked underwater again, his body a silvered streak, then a rippled blue shadow. His whisper echoed once more, a warning or a promise: _And we all make our sacrifices._ The water closed around him, and he was gone, the surface placid and silent, hinting nothing of what ghosted beneath.

The surrounding walls were steep, nearly sheer, hollowed and notched by wind and salt. They met the water in rough-folded waves, forming a multitude of small hollows and coves. There, half-hidden in overhanging shadows, dark glassy orbs bobbed in the water, clicking against rock or silently brushing the hanging green. There were perhaps fewer of the spheres now, and no sign of whatever tides had driven them to take shelter against this bastion of stone. But something about the distant horizon, when Raziel looked out from the grotto, seemed... not right, seemed malicious.

There was no welcoming beach shore here; stony walls rose straight and slick from the water's embrace, adorned with clinging ferns and hanging moss. And adept as Raziel might be in the air, he was certainly no flying fish, to leap from one element to the next with naught more than a flip of a nonexistent tail ....

It appeared, then, that Raziel would have to make a much less ... dramatic entrance. Swimming through the water to the nearest rocky cliff, he was uneasily aware of his clumsy splashing, nothing like the sleek and silent movement Rahab had shown. Before, he had not felt the faintest trace of unease, guarded as he had been by his brother's company. Now ... the waters suddenly seemed a great deal more opaque, ominous. He had a vague, half-formed memory of something else lurking in their depths ...

Shaking away his womanish fears, Raziel reached outward, brushing talons over the rocky walls. It was good stone--porous, yet solid enough for purchase without flaking and crumbling under the edges of his talons. Glossy spheres nudged against him as he craned his neck in order to gauge the best route, moving in silent swirls and patterns of their own, at the mercy of the water's currents. But whatever their purpose, they kept their secrets, shadowed and half-submerged, as Raziel sank talons into the stone before him and began to climb.

The first long pull was a hard one, Raziel's body weighted by the sucking water and whatever forces had drawn him down to begin with. But the water sheeted from his wings, poured from his armor, and his movements became less encumbered with every bodylength. The rock was cracked and fissured, worn into recessed canyons. The climbing was easier, there, and the sharpening gusts of wind were muted to mere breaths, but the close walls afforded little space for the spread of Raziel's wings, and he kept them tight-folded. The water grew distant below him as he ascended; the atmosphere thickened, as if heralding a stormfront.

Raziel reached for a final handhold rear the rim of the plateau. His talons slid firmly into the mossy crack, but as he placed his weight there, the entire be-greened ribbon of stone peeled away from its parent mass, and Raziel had to scramble for purchase in the sudden tumbling landslide. Chunks of stone pelted his head and back, man-sized boulders crashed down so close the the wind of their passage kissed his skin, and only Raziel's quickness kept him from joining the fall. The rock was rotten close to the exposed surface, he saw, for the scar from where the fin had parted was wormed with the channels of anchoring roots. For all their seeming fragility, the wreathing ferns and vines did their part, with the wind, to gnaw away at the walls.

Even Raziel's sharp ears could not make out the sound of stone falling into water, so far below. But the palms of his hands sensed well enough the vibration of a footfall, directly overhead, very massive. The voice that accompanied it was just as heavy, a bass stone rumble. "'Tis enough to cause one to wonder if you mean to play at warfare, or at farming."

"... Turel?" The name escaped him before he could call it back, born of surprise. Raziel craned his head backwards, his awkward position ensuring that, try as he might, he could not see if his younger sibling truly was above him; even his nose failed him, as all he could scent was the damp earth now liberally adorning his talons.

A new talon-hold proved as rotten as the first, giving way with a fresh shower of stones and soil. "I have, in fact, decided to--unh!--become a badger, and burrow my way through the rest of my nights," Raziel snapped in annoyance. "Are you here merely to congratulate yourself on your own cleverness?" He threw one hand up, reaching for the top of the cliff, groping for any rock or soil anchored by more than the feeblest memories of gravity ....

The edges of Raziel's hand brushed smooth stone, not pitted like the rock of the massif -- and then that stone enclosed his talons. Turel's low chuckle was tangible, the sound rattling loose pebbles. With a single motion, effortlessly smooth, he hauled Raziel up from the precipice. Out of the shelter of the rock, the wind was stiff, one moment whipping Raziel's now-dry hair about his face, the next casting grit and salt into his eyes. The top of the plateau was bleak, a great gray plain, nearly flat but crossed by the serpentine lines of low walls, unmortared and newly raised, and by cracked ravines that might have been defensive works. There was little to obstruct the wind, or the view -- and there could be no missing Turel.

And it was unmistakeably Turel -- had Turel's face and talons and presumptuous tone. But there were changes, now, in the fanned ears that swept back from crested scalp, in the strange musculature across shoulders and chest, in the olive and green and mossy veins that chased Turel's skin... and in sheer scale. "While you are certainly ill-tempered as a badger, little brother -- were I you, I'd leave the 'burrower' distinction to Zephon."

Raziel looked up--and up. Turel had always been the largest of them all, both in height and in breadth--much to Dumah's eternal dismay--but now ... now he seemed as massive as one of his Clan's fortifications. "Little?" Raziel remarked sardonically, raising a skeptical eyebrow as he was set ungently upon his feet. "Has the rarefied air up there addled your senses, my brother? Or do you now consider yourself my elder?"

Another creature might have felt a qualm or three in challenging a vampire of Turel's obvious--attributes. But Raziel knew his brother well, in war and in peace, and while their long association had never been quite as amicable as he and Rahab, he still knew Turel. His strength, his keen mind--and his petty jealousies, his attempted rivalries with Raziel for Kain's favor.

Turel, along with Dumah, had thrown him into the Abyss. Raziel would not play the helpless victim a second time.

"What *have* you been eating?" Raziel added, taking Turel's measure. "Do the others know you have been taking their share of the blood-tithe?"

"Your age, whatever it is, has not improved your manners, that much is clear. Perhaps your evolution rendered you an air-breather, that you should imagine the atmosphere might go to my head?" Turel snorted, the sound like that of an irate bull. He shifted his weight forward, employing his intimidating bulk -- made still greater by an intricately tooled suit of empire platemail -- to full advantage. With a broad-taloned right hand, Turel poked with apparent dismay at Raziel's simple, much-battered pauldron. The top of his brother's head just barely reached the ridge of Turel's collar bone.

His first collar bone. Because below that, under the straps and plates of Turel's mail, were stranger architectures of bone and muscle. The gusting wind whipped Turel's clan drape forward, and Kain's secondborn pushed his cape back -- also with a right hand, though he did not remove the first from Raziel's shoulder. "And while your concern over my diet is... fraternal, it is misplaced. 'Tis not I who prefers to sup upon rawboned, musk-blooded males."

"Why settle for a cud-chewing doe when you can hunt the stag?" Raziel retorted, picking up the thread of the argument with the ease of familiarity. He crossed his arms, unimpressed by Turel's sartorial ambitions, elegant as they were. For an elder of Turel's stature, such armor in battle was more cumbersome than necessary. He tilted his head, eyeing the extra pair of taloned hands curiously. The overabundant size, even the ears--these things seemed ... familiar, even expected of Kain's second Lieutenant. But the extra limbs ... those were new and surprising.

"You have acquired new appendages of your own, I see," Raziel observed, lifting an eyebrow. "One pair of hands was no longer sufficient for your needs?"

"So queried by a man who avoids the clean work of the forge like plague-ridden prey." Turel shrugged his cape back further, lifted his hands for Raziel's inspection. They were in all respects identical to his first pair, beginning a few inches beneath his proper shoulders, and would probably be of considerable use to an artisan. The plates of Turel's armor lent to his every motion the faint rasping sound of oiled metal, audible even in the breeze. "Tell me, did you _intend_ to damage and scar your equipment so? For fashion, prithee tell? Mayhap you feel the gouges and dents lend you a rakish air?"

Raziel shrugged. "At least they are scars honestly won in battle. Would you have me stop to hammer out each dent and scratch, all for my vanity's sake?" The spars of his wings shifted slightly, and his voice hardened. "Indeed, where exists an armorer who could fit a winged creature? The last of that breed met their end long ago, at the moment of Vorador's demise."

The tip of Turel's ear twitched, but he seemed otherwise not to notice the change in Raziel's tone. His eyes narrowed as he traced a talon edge over a dent so deep it split the edge of Raziel's pauldron. It was more than a question of hammering it out -- a smith would need a complicated set of forms and jigs to repair such damage. "A battle? This looks more as if you won it crashing headfirst down a mountainside." As if unconsciously, his lower left hand drifted to the hilt of one of the heavy hammers he carried slung at his side, stroking the wire-wrapped shaft thoughtfully. But the mention of a -- possibly -- more preeminent smith than himself caught Turel's attention. "Vorador? Hn." His gold-green gaze flicked to Raziel's with a kind of acid amusement. "And as I recall, you had no reason to ask me when last we met, now did you?"

"Even had I reason, you would hardly have been in a position to oblige," Raziel pointed out, his tone as chill as midwinter ice. The gross and misshapen *thing* that Turel had become, glutted on blood and goaded to insanity by the Hylden--there had been almost nothing left of the clever and skilled artisan's mind, to say nothing of the ability once exercised by those hands. In comparison, the wretched wraith that Raziel had been had fared somewhat better; he, at least, had managed to keep his sanity.

"How did you come to inhabit such a prison? As ironic as it was to find you thus, you were never one to submit so meekly to confinement ..." Raziel tilted his head, golden eyes narrowed as he thought on the matter. "What enticements did the Hylden offer that led you to such a place?"

Turel's gaze slid back to Raziel's battered equipment, though this time there was something of avoidance to Turel's apparent distraction. "The usual, Raziel: power, blood, escape. The Empire persisted a long time after your fall, even flourished, perhaps. But the decay had taken root -- each decade more land was blighted, fewer humans lived through the summer heat to work what remained. And we began to grow... not ourselves. I think you saw the result of that, did you not? One can only watch one's children devour each other so many times. The chance at a new beginning seemed a blessing, and the pit no greater purgatory than I'd departed."

Turel looked up with a sudden fierce flash of teeth -- his fangs were nearly long as a man's finger. "And, frankly, you should be grateful that I learned to tolerate confinement."

Raziel's brows knitted at Turel's enigmatic statement. Was that some manner of threat? Did Turel dream of pursuing recompense for his death at Raziel's hand--or did he simply refer to the Hylden machinations that had put him in that pit for Raziel to find?

"Gratitude?" He turned away, sidestepping Turel's bulk to walk further from the cliff's edge, surveying the fissured expanse of the plateau--yet never exposing his back to his brother. Not fully. "Search as I might, I find little in our shared history that would inspire such." The memory of Turel's talons, dug deep into savaged and bleeding flesh, was vivid still ... the screaming agony of torn flesh and bone compounded by utter betrayal, thrice over.

Turel's low laugh was, again, a thing as much felt as heard. "You are a less knowledgeable jailor than the Hylden, at least." He gestured with open hand to the plain before them. "Do you mean to tell me you don't know where you are? What this is?"

Raziel transferred his scowl from the fissure at his feet to his brother's hulking form. "What riddles are you playing at now, Turel? Of course I know where I am."

Then he stopped short, caught by his own hasty words. Where *was* this place? He had been in the water, he knew--the Lake of the Dead? Which meant he was now above its shores ... but while the Lake had possessed cliffs aplenty, the barren plateau that stretched before him was far too large and untenanted for familiarity .... He turned slowly, trying to get his bearings. He had crossed and re-crossed Nosgoth, both in the living world and that of the dead, in so many times, so many different ages ... what age *was* this?

The air behind him seemed to shimmer as if in a heat haze, all unnoticed, as Raziel searched for the clues that would lead him to familiarity with this place. For he was where he should be. *That*, at least, he was sure of....

Turel's expression was a familiar one; the larger vampire clearly caught between the twin pleasures of lecturing his brother on a point, and knowing something Raziel did not. "In that case, you surely recognize this... fortress," he said, mouth twisting wryly as he gestured at the tangle of walls and structures before them, and the height of the cliffs behind. "It is well the builder was starting from such natural advantage, or all would have been lost to the first serious assault." Turel followed with long strides as Raziel moved, falling in beside his brother. Perhaps not coincidentally, he kept clear of the haze that trailed Raziel, the places where his world grew thin and turbulent in response to the winged vampire's will, however unconsciously it was applied.

Pacing over to the nearer edge of one of the walls, Raziel poked an experimental talon at it, frowning when the unmortared stone crumbled under the touch. "These are no walls of yours, that is for certain," he allowed, giving his brother his due. Arrogant Turel might be, but the Turelim fortresses had been some of the finest in the Empire. He surveyed the fortifications, his scowl deepening as he saw their slipshod design. These walls might slow an attack--perhaps--but little more than that.

Unwilling to admit he did not know the purpose of the haphazard walls before him, Raziel continued to walk, thoughtfully pacing their outer edges.

In some places, the walls were a little better -- the stones jointed together with care, though those sections of barrier were not particularly extensive. A few of the foundations were rather cleverly placed: canyon-like walled ravines to channel an attacking horde into a compact mass; platforms from which to drop flammable oil or water. But in other places, walls had apparently collapsed and new ones built atop the unstable rubble. This fortress had clearly seen repeated attack -- and of many different kinds, by the evidence before Raziel. Another hard gust of wind whipped dust against them; the stormfront was thicker now, but the scent of the wind held not the clean crackle of lightning. The clouds seemed to behave unnaturally, as if they filtered in from above. And there was something about the wind... something alien, something stifling, repressive... dead.

"Nor am I able to affect their condition," admitted Turel from beside his brother, taking two strides to Raziel's three, as he looked out over the border. He hissed, a short sound of annoyance. "My dominion, as you well know, does not extend so far as it once did."

"Your dominion?" Raziel said distractedly, his troubled gaze having been drawn up to the gathering storm. His wings were drawn tight to his back, taloned hands flexing unconsciously as he contemplated it. It felt as if he should be expecting an attack ... yet the idea was ridiculous. A mere smattering of wind and rain hardly had the capacity to harm him ....

Forcing his attention back to Turel, Raziel asked, "Whose fortress is this, then, that you must lurk around the borders of it in such a manner?" And what had happened to Turel's own fief?

Turel smiled again, a toothy and aggressive baring of teeth, clearly enjoying his brother's confusion. "Why, it is yours, Raziel."

"Mine?" Raziel was beginning to feel like some manner of echo chamber, repeating his brother's words until they made some manner of sense. He looked at the fortress again, and shook his head. "You are mistaken, Turel--I had never claimed the lands around the Lake. This is not my fief ...." Such an ill-omened fief it would have been, were that the case!

And yet ... the walls were familiar, in some vague way. Not as if he had any hand in building them, no, but as if he had ordered their construction some centuries before, and left the planning to another ...

"The what?" Turel frowned, glanced behind, heavy-horned brow furrowed, as if he expected the waters there to have suddenly vanished. They had not; that, at least, was perhaps reassuring. "No. I half believe our piscine brother moves that minor circle of hell about as he pleases. It is not -- precisely -- the lake you knew." And then again, sometimes it was. Landmarks were chancy things, he'd come to learn. "In any case Raziel, rest assured, this place is most certainly yours. Or rather -- part of you."

"I may not reach your rather exalted heights when it comes to building fortifications, brother, but I assure you, I would never allow walls so shabby," Raziel retorted. Turel's amusement at his expense was becoming rather tiresome, as was his insistence that ownership of this ruin belonged to Raziel, and no other.

His mood darkened, as if to match the storm-clouds overhead. "And if you are minded to tell me these walls are naught but the pitiful remainder left after my fall, I will tell you that I walked the lands of the Razielim after my return. There was nothing so intact as this."

Turel's ears twitched, and he leaned in close, as if to study a strange or amusing curiosity. "So... you think yourself still in Nosgoth, do you." Turel cupped the hilt of one of his hammers again, a contemplative habit. "You are not," he said at last, ignoring Raziel's glower. "For _this_ ," Turel straightened, swept his hand over the horizon like a magician proudly revealing a stage trick, "is a dreamscape, an illusion, a metaphor. And this... structure, such as it is, is a representation of the boundary of you and that which is not you. Do you begin to comprehend now?"

Raziel stared at him, refusing to release Turel's gaze, his arms crossed and feet planted. "What you are saying is--that this is not real." There was a low rumble beneath them, as if the stones beneath their feet had shifted just slightly ... "That *you* are not real, and this is some manner of delusion. If that is so--" And the mere thought of it brought an unacknowledged pang, deep within, "--then tell me why I should listen to you, if you are a mere figment and not my bro..."

And then there was a second pang. A taloned hand seemed to come out of nowhere, and Turel had Raziel by the central clasp of his pauldrons in a heartbeat. "Do I look like a delusion to you, Raziel?" Turel growled, jerking Raziel off the ground to snarl at him from a talon's-breadth distance. "Do I _feel_ unreal? We may be devoured, but _we are not nothing_."

"Release me, Turel," Raziel snarled right back, "Or unreal or not, I shall see whether you still bleed!" He little liked being manhandled and left dangling like some wooden puppet, and if it took violence to make Turel show the respect due his elder, Raziel was more than willing to supply it!

"You claim this place is an illusion, yet you are not. You claim you are dead and devoured, yet you still exist. Do you take me for a fool?" he spat. "If this is naught but the hazy remnants of my own longings, than so be it ... but you cannot have it both ways, brother!"

Turel seemed disinclined to let Raziel go. "This place? You _are_ a fool if you imagine that I would take responsibility for the metaphors that _you_ " in emphasis, or in indignation at Raziel's stubborn expression, Turel gave him a hard shake, like a terrier with a rat, "employ to clothe your own aspects!"

"Enough!" Raziel struck like a snake. One taloned hand slashed for Turel's eyes, and when his brother flinched reflexively, the other struck unerringly for the arm that held him, slicing downward to sever the cabled tendons of the arm that held him captive. Massive that arm might be, and layered with dense muscle--yet the talons of an elder could punch through platemail. Armor, skin and tendon parted, and the taloned fingers spasmed, dropping Raziel to the ground.

Hissing in pained surprise, Turel grabbed again at his brother with an opposing hand. Raziel ducked under it, snarling. "For all your pretenses at stature, brother, it seems you too have your flaws. Or will you blame those upon me as well? I your jailor, your killer, and now apparently your creator!"

Turel's ears were laid back, flat against his skull. He shook his own purple-dark blood from his talons, where a rivulet had slicked the cutting edges. Another hand reached to the forearm guard, bending back the place Raziel had gouged -- the metal sealed itself into a smooth surface as quickly as did Turel's more naturally armored skin. A third hand unhooked one of the heavy hammers from where it hung at his belt -- in the hands of any other creature, it would have been a maul, four feet long with a massive head, one side flared and the other a deadly hook. He brandished it in Raziel's fast-moving direction. Turel's roar made his brother's teeth vibrate.

"I would not be forced to manhandle you if you would simply _listen to reason_ , instead of behaving like a jilted swain!"

As Raziel drew breath to reply to that, the curved, hook-end of another heavy hammer caught at the back of Raziel's knee -- keeping track of all the limbs of an opponent like this would take some practice -- and jerked him entirely off his feet. "My creation was most certainly not by your hand, little brother!"

As Raziel fell, he rolled, just ducking the other hammer-blow as it thudded against the earth where he had been only a moment again. In another instant, he was on his feet again, slashing at those muscled arms. Aiming to wound, rather than maim--for this was merely another spat between brothers, not a true battle, and just one in a series that spanned centuries.

"Twas you that made such an assertion, not I," Raziel retorted. "You always were an upstart prey-grabber, even as a fledge--why should I not be surprised that you have sprung up like a weed amongst the brambles of my mind?" Turel attempted another swing--and Raziel leaped over it, straight up as if he intended to take to the air, only to lash out with one booted and razor-edged foot instead, smashing it into that broad-planed face.

"You are *dead*, Turel--dead and sent to the maw of the Elder God!" Raziel snapped in defiance. "And the thing I am speaking to now cannot be anything more than a shade summoned of my own misgivings!" For he had known what the Elder God had been, by the time he had encountered Turel, had he not? Yet he had murdered his brother anyway ...

Turel twisted away, not swiftly enough, as Raziel gouged through metal and, effortlessly, leather, separating one pauldron from Turel's skin. The gold-gleaming piece of armor clinked hollowly as it hit the stones underfoot. "What madness are you -- grragh!" Turel caught the brunt of the kick on his heavy chest and shoulder plates, but it still rocked him back and spoiled his aim as he grabbed at Raziel's ankle. He'd intended to smash his fool sibling to the ground, but Raziel twisted like a cat -- so damnably fast! -- and fell into a crouch, the better to spout his inane conjectures, evidently.

"If that were true, you primping peacock," Turel hissed, spitting blood and striding forward, "then how did you retain the ability to sieve through grates? Or to swim? Dolt! We are forged from slivers of the same soul!"

"Oh? And in your forge, does any metal, once broken, whether plainest tin or purest gold, leap together of its own volition?" Raziel retorted. He kicked out again, brutally slamming a foot into Turel's armored knee. Those, at least, his brother only had two of--but Turel's leg was as solid as the trunk of an ancient oak. Raziel's attack accomplished little, save denting the armor there. Reeling back from that blow, he sensed Turel's fist only a moment before the blow knocked him sprawling once more.

Extra limbs were a decided advantage in combat, it seemed.

Fighting the sickening lurch of the ground beneath him, Raziel doggedly pushed himself onto his feet once more. "The powers I gained were not ... " he staggered a bit, losing the thread of his argument in the process. "... not ...how could you have remained? The Elder God ..."

"Do gears, forged to interlink, not match when placed together -- no matter how long they have remained separate?" Turel made to step forward, talons outspread, and was caught up short as his buckled shinguard refused to move as intended. Refused for a moment, only -- for as Turel turned his attention to it, the metal smoothed itself back into its original arc. But that moment was more than enough time for Raziel to recover and dart to the side, avoiding being seized again. Turel rumbled his irritation, lifted his fist. "Enough of your ravings! The Elder God this, the Elder God that -- you sound like that squid's mouthpiece." Turel brought his fist down -- not to strike, but rather as if pulling on some invisible handful of cords. And even as his brother moved for better advantage, his armor, indeed every piece of metal upon Raziel... seemed to increase in weight a hundredfold.

Yellow eyes narrowed as Raziel grunted under the sudden weight, dropping to one knee. "I am no creature's mouthpiece--not Kain's, not that so-called God's, and certainly not yours!" He pushed upward, to his feet, with visible effort. Only the prodigious and unnatural strength granted him in the Abyss allowed him to do even that, and his movements were as hampered as if he had one of the Ancients' massive puzzle-blocks pressing upon his shoulders.

The course of their battle had taken them further from the fortress walls--and closer to another crumbling edge of the plateau. Waves lapped eagerly below as Turel advanced--and Raziel was forced to give way. "You speak so cavalierly of that 'squid'--should I return your favor, brother, and deliver you unto him as you once did me?"

"Oh, so now you think you _didn't_ already sacrifice me to that thing, after all. And you dared accuse me of inconsistency!" The wind whipped higher, curls of dim, void-like cloudstuff scudding over the fissured plateau, scattering against the low fortress walls. In his fury, Turel neither slowed nor turned aside, noticing not as his hooves sank deep prints into the softer, pebbly soil. His talons lashed out, and Raziel staggered just barely out of reach once more, moving quite cursedly well under a weight that should have left him prostrate. "Stand still and listen to -- damnation! You skip about like a Meridian jumping be--" Turel's breath caught, "get down, Raziel!" and the larger vampire lunged for him once more.

"I do not--" and then the rest of Raziel's words were lost in the sudden rising roar of the wind. As the air vibrated with a scream like that of a dying soul, it all seemed to happen at once: razored dragon-shapes forming out of the clouds, toothy maws descending upon him; his own attempt to dodge Turel as his brother's massive form fell upon him like an avalanche; and the cliff's edge crumbling beneath them both, sending them cascading downward in a tumble of boulders and debris, towards the waiting jaws of the water below.

 _Turel!_ Fear and rage roiling in his chest, Raziel sank talons deep into his brother's armored shoulders as they tumbled, uncaring if they also sank into flesh. He * _heaved_ *, feet scrabbling against an also-falling boulder and thrusting outward--

\--and wings flared out, beating hard against Turel's weight as Raziel bore them upward. The unnatural weight of his armor had vanished as if it had never been, the metal transmuted into the crimson silks and dark leathers of Ancient-enchanted make. Raziel grunted in effort as he lurched sideways, away from the cliff-edge now cascading into the waters below.

"What in Kain's name is * _that_ *?" For he knew, even before Turel answered, that those dark clouds, roiling with reptilian menace, were nothing that belonged in this place ....

Above them, a great chunk of the edge of the plateau had *vanished,* the gap still crackling with heat-shot haze, like the breath of the void. A pair of long bodies passed overhead, the screams from their shifting, boiling throats the sound of hell itself, their wings churning the sky. The wash of their passage rocked Raziel, came close to heaving him and his burden both into the side of the cliff.

Turel kicked out against a fin of mossy stone, keeping it at a distance. His deep purple blood slicked Raziel's talons and the side of Turel's neck, the tip of one broad ear tattered. One of his hammers tumbled along with the other rubble, at last to hit the water with a distant splash. Resolutely, Turel did not look down. "Doubtless the same things that have been tearing at your barriers for the last few days," he shouted back.

The roiling cloud-forms, in one moment indistinct and in the next scaled and dripping-fanged, split apart, circling to the right and left. Turel wrapped an arm firmly around Raziel's silk-clad thigh. "This would all be very much easier if you had a _proper_ citadel."

"As it would be if you were somewhat *lighter*, brother," Raziel snapped. They were now fully clear of the dissolving cliff--but had exchanged one danger for another, for in the open air, they were now vulnerable to attack from all sides.

Raziel backwinged frantically as a dragon-toothed shape dove at them, missing only by inches. The backwash of its wake was an icy and moldering reek of the grave, one that chilled down to the bone. Another shriek ripped through the sky, and Raziel dove, using gravity as well as his wings to give him the speed he required as the second dragon lunged at Turel's dangling form with snapping jaws, sullen purplish lightning crackling along its length. The water rushed up at them with dizzying speed; and at the last moment Raziel veered, swooping to the side with desperate skill, riding the wind upwards once more as the cloud exploded against the lake's waters.

"You truly know nothing of this?" Raziel asked, once he had a few scant moments in which to concentrate on something other than flight. "Surely there is a way to battle these creatures!" He also wished to know how an outside power could intrude upon this place; but such questions were hardly important when placed against their survival.

"I'd be of more assistance if you'd quit dangling me like some kind of lure," Turel snarled, his talons gripping Raziel hard enough to bruise, even through the Ancient-crafted armor. He could neither swing nor throw his hammer like this! As if flight alone were not sickening enough -- and over water, too! "Quit dodging the issue -- at least go repair the thrice be-damned catapults!"

The fallen dragon was reforming itself upon the waves, but not swiftly. It seemed hampered somehow, as if something in the water was hostile, was gnawing away at its substance. The other creature, though, was unencumbered. It moved like a thing a fraction of its mass, wheeling tightly to come at them once more.

Turel hissed a curse, clawed at the sculpted plate of his own forearm guard. The piece of metal came loose in his talons, he extended his hand... and the metal shot away from him, a gold-green bolt, its force as great as that which had borne Raziel down only a minute before. The chunk of metal carved a great rent in their amorphous attacker, and the dragon faltered, but only for a moment, before the gap closed up as if it had never been.

"Catapults?" Raziel echoed, bewildered. But he dipped one wing, slipping sideways in the air to circle around, darting and weaving just ahead of their draconic pursuer, back towards the fortress remnants of before. The dark clouds from which their attackers had sprung massed before them, roiling low and ominous upon the horizon, and Raziel could not help but feel a twinge of unease as their nearness.

The dragon coiled, shifted--and then sprang forward, lunging through the air like a striking snake. In desperation, Raziel folded his wings and dropped, feeling the dark wind of the creature's passage above them. Its scream of frustration and rage shattered the air, rattling the stones below.

Raziel snapped his wings outward again, trying to break their fall--but the distance was too short. They hit with stunning force, tumbling onto the cracked stones of the fortress-walls in an ungainly jumble of limbs and wings and bruised dignity.

"Move!" Raziel ordered, shoving one of Turel's arms off of him as he climbed to his feet, craning his neck to see from which direction the next attack would come. "So, Turel--where are these mysterious and so-neglected catapults of yours?"

Turel snarled in Raziel's direction as he levered himself to his own feet, but he was plainly pleased to be back on solid ground. "Since you do not see one, it appears there are none in this location, now doesn't it?" The light flickered, faded, intensified as the roiling clouds above blotted it out, making it difficult to locate their assailants. But with a roar of chill wind, *something* ripped a man-sized block of chipped stone from the length of crenellated wall near them.

Hammer gripped in two hands, Turel vaulted atop a crumbling stone platform and swung into the boiling cloud, the bright metal of his weapon arcing a great furrow into the cloudwall; the rent spilled grave-cold mist. "This would, however, be an excellent location for one!" Turel shouted, over the thing's soul-scream. "Bladed walls would also -- oomph!" Turel ducked, deflecting a swipe of arm-long shadowy talons with one of his remaining heavy gauntlets, so that the claws screeched over his back plates, instead of sinking through to the flesh beneath.

"You wish me to start constructing one *now*?" Raziel barked back, throwing a telekinetic bolt into that roiling mass. The bolt punched inward, but otherwise did nothing, the deadly mist roiling around it untouched. "With what, exactly, should I build? Stone and my own blood? Or do you expect me to _wish_ one into existence?"

A return strike crashed into the stones beneath his feet, the wall shuddering with the impact. Fangs bared in a frustrated snarl, Raziel swiped at a stray tendril with bloodied talons, even as his skin shrank in revulsion at the touch of that mist.

The dense haze retreated, but the stuff that Raziel had cut clung to his skin, decaying and thick, cold as if it drank the remnant warmth from his skin, ate away at the rivulets of Turiel's blood that coated Raziel's claws. The deathly ichor left a scum of white hoarfrost on Raziel's talons as it dissipated.

"Wish, actualize, conceive, whatever label you wish to apply -- yes! Cease this prevarication, and just --" Turel turned his head, caught a glimpse of Raziel's expression. Hissing a curse, Turel ripped away his previously-dented shinguard. Obliging his will, the metal came apart in his hands, breaking into wickedly jagged chunks. The pieces shot out into the chill mist, each bolt trailing gold-hot starfire. Howling, the cloudstuff recoiled, giving them a moment's reprieve. "Remember, Raziel, Kain's instruction of shielding? The quiet, the centering, the visualization? Remember -- remember the time he taught us, and there was a bread riot on the streets of Meridian outside, and the distraction of those three delicious young girls lying bound in the next room; even still you managed to raise a shielding every one of us could sense. It felt as if you'd vanished behind high walls. My Whisper seemed to echo, like a voice upon smooth stone. Kain praised you, and I -- "

Raziel closed his eyes, catching hold of the thread Turel had given him. The memory was clear, vivid--as if it had happened only yesterday, instead of millennia ago. That quiet room, that smelled of blood and dust, sealed away from the cacaphony of Meridian's streets below ... Kain's voice, dark and implacable, teaching them how to close off their mind against any intrusion, to make it opaque, unreadable ....

The cloudstuff surged forward, using Turel's momentary inattention to strike. Phantom claws slashed downward--and then rebounded, screeching off of the obsidian wall on which the vampires now stood. Almost double the height of its previous incarnation, the wall was nearly seamless, blocks of glassy stone fitted so closely that one could not put a talon-tip between them. Razored edges glittered cruelly upon the outward surface, and as a cloud tendril attempted to slip over those remade ramparts, it met that bladed edge and fell apart, shriveling into nothingness.

The damage of years could not be undone with a few words and a moment's concentration, however. That obsidian wall extended only a furlong or so to each side of where they stood, and beyond it, the same eroded stoneworks took its place.

"I remember," Raziel said slowly, without opening his eyes. "You were angry; you had believed that in this lesson, at least, we would be equals. You knew I cared little for the dusty tomes that Kain had set before us to study--you thought it the height of injustice that I could grasp the lesson so quickly regardless."

Turel hissed in a breath as a rupturing heat-haze rippled through the wall below, spreading out and down, strengthening, and he dropped to a half-crouch, steadying himself with one fist. The dragon-mist appeared to shrink as the wall under the brothers grew before it. With a low grinding wail of fury, the creature raced along the length of the wall, seeking a way around. The second reptile-thing had escaped the water's deadly embrace, though its mass was much-diminished, and even now the beast was roiling up over the distant edge of the cliff. But in the quiet interval before the inevitable attack, Turel focused upon Raziel, his mouth tight. Raziel had been twice Turel's years, then, in Meridian -- how like him to parade his successes over mere whelps! And he and Turel *were* equals, eventually; with time and long practice, Turel became even better equipped than his brother to defend against most varieties of mental intrusions. But the bitterness of that day's lessons had never faded, not fully.

"And I gave you what you deserved, conceited brat and bootlicker that you were, that same evening. How carefully I husbanded my mental forces, accumulating energy throughout that afternoon! We two were ordered to hunt separately, but I trailed and found you, skulking on the wooden rooftiles of some merchant's abode, still sporting that shield, the making of which had come to you so easily. We argued over your rank arrogance. You put hand to blade --" Turel had certainly not been able to match his brother in swordwork then, and how well Raziel had known it! "--and I unleashed the mind-ram."

"Yes." Raziel opened his eyes again, turning to face Turel. In contrast to his brother's gloating countenance, Raziel's expression was remote, his golden gaze icy as he took in the other vampire's form. "It was the first time you had exercised your foolish envy--and it cost us greatly." The obsidian wall shimmered, pushing outward a few lengths more and a scattering of razor-edged and crystalline bladed protrusions springing from the base, as if summoned by the memory of that attack.

Before that night, Turel's jealous tantrums had been those of a fledge--intemperate, sudden, and just as swiftly forgotten. But this attack--meticulously thought out, nurtured tenderly by the envy in his younger brother's breast--had marked the first time their battles for primacy had taken such a deadly turn. It had been a foreshadowing of things to come ....

"Your attack was most effective, brother." Raziel had not thought Turel so adept at mind-magic; now, with centuries to blunt offended pride, he could admit that he had underestimated Kain's second son. "You struck me from that roof and onto another, with force enough to break several bones, as I recall." Raziel's voice hardened. "You are still so proud of that attack, aren't you? Even when our battling brought the vampire hunters down upon us all and ensured Kain's wrath, not to mention our own hunger for a good sevenday after. But none of that ever mattered to you, did it?"

The first of the two dragon-shadows hissed, flinching back from the expanding wall of obsidian -- then it reached the unmaintained section. Its tattered wings spread, and it ghosted over in a rush of wind that whipped pebbles into the air. The clatter of them against the volcanic glass walls seemed like monstrous hail. The second creature, its margins thinned to wisps and tendrils, was more desperate. Howling, it flung itself against the bladed wall, goring itself open, clawing and striving for the top.

Turel ignored both, gold-green gaze glittering as he stalked towards Raziel. "Do you take me for Dumah? Consequences always matter, Raziel. Tell me, brother, do you recall the most immediate consequence of my assault?"

Raziel frowned. "Immediate consequences? Other than breaking open my shields and causing enough of a commotion to summon the Guard?" He searched through his memories of that night. Turel had challenged him, had flung an attack unlike any he had ever felt before ... it had fallen like one of his brother's great sledges, crashing against untested mental shields--and through them. Raziel could not escape that crushing force, pressing downward as if to obliterate his mind entirely ... and spurred on by fear, had reared back and flung ... *something* ....

It had been some manner of mental riposte, as Raziel remembered it. Purely untaught and born of desperation, he had twisted out of Turel's mental grip and delivered a stop-thrust straight to the heart of his attacker, all in the same moment.

Behind them, the massive forms of catapults began to shimmer into existence, great deadly machines made of dark wood and oiled steel, coiled and ready to strike.

Around the assembling engines of war, shadows stirred like memories more than half-forgotten, rising up in shapes tall and strong -- and many-limbed. They stood at the ready, while their equipment was created.

The first dragon-shadow screamed its triumph, streaking down upon the brothers from behind with claws outstretched, deathly fire searing the very air in its wake. The thing's companion had dragged itself up the bladed wall, tearing itself to tatters even as it reached the top, and now it crested before them, a single maw of teeth and hell-breath, like the malevolent fume of some impossible wave.

And the last of the catapults solidified, standing dark and tall upon the solid ebony wall. The cold fires of the wraithblade sprang into existence in the bowl of each one, eager to fly and devour all it touched, and the hulking shades stepped forward to man the siege engines confidently.

Turel seized Raziel, dragged him into the close and armoring embrace of metal and bloodied flesh. His rumble of amusement vibrated through Raziel's bones. _There's a reason for my absence, that sevenday thereafter. Well forged, Raziel._

And the world went white.

 

 *******

 

Scent was the first sense to return. Scent ... and the taste of blood upon his lips. _Tur--_ he almost Whispered, then stopped short. The blood was not his brother's--it carried the unmistakable tang of his own power, potent and familiar. Raziel frowned, and opened his eyes--only to find that simple task unaccountably difficult. " ... Anani ...?"

How was his firstborn here so swiftly? Even if he had abandoned the Clan, it would have taken days to traverse afoot the distance to Aptera .... And Anani was not the only one. There were others--elder Razielim standing sentry at the chamber entrances, and others--the chambers he found himself in seemed unaccountably full of hangers-on.

Raziel's firstborn had been in furious conversation with another elder -- at the sound of Raziel's rasping indrawn breath, he jerked, every fiber of his body suddenly tense. He wheeled to face the bed-like platform upon which his Sire had been placed; his Whisper betrayed frustration, fear, relief so strong only iron control kept it from his face. _Raziel!_ The mental contact was strangely faint at first, as if attenuated or filtered by distance.

Every other huddled conversation in the room fell silent, each elder's attention upon his source, tense. The chamber was, Raziel could see now, one of the great circular lodgings at the top of the temple. Raziel had been quartered here a year ago, by his time-reckoning. But now the furniture was shoved aside or overturned, the tapestries dragged down as if to deprive some foe of any possible hiding place, mirrors shattered to prevent possible scrying. And as for the Ancients who attended and guarded Raziel... in the quiet, a muffled thump could be heard clearly from the next room. Anani seized a goblet -- full of the Ancient's strange artificial blood, from the scent -- and approached swiftly, biting his wrist open as he did. He proffered the bloodied limb. _Master. What happened?_

Raziel drew another breath to speak--and convulsed, as his lungs rebelled, immersed in fluid far too long. He jerked to the side as his body did its duty in ridding itself of the foreign substance, coughing up bloody-tinged water upon the floor. Only once the last of the water was gone could he pull himself upright, ignoring Anani's proffered wrist for the moment.

 _Happened? Why are you here, Anani--and how?_ Surely his firstborn had not abandoned the rest of the Clan, simply that he might journey more swiftly to Raziel's side? Raziel glanced around at the assembled elders, frowning. Most of his surviving progeny were here, it appeared--and from the crackling of fear and anger in the air, something ill had indeed transpired. "What has happened?" he asked aloud, his voice roughened by water and disuse.

The elders crowding the room exchanged looks; had Raziel suffered... drowning? Why, and by whom? They were accustomed to their Lord's resistance to the acid sear of water, but to have the stuff inside him, and still recover -- it beggared belief! Anani glanced to them, and Raziel could sense the muffled sursurrus of Whispers being exchanged. Reluctantly, some of the warriors began to back out into the adjoining antechamber -- they could hear nearly as well, there, but their departure lent at least some illusion of space and privacy. "My Lord. Two days ago, after camp was laid in the midmorning, I sought your mind to report on our progress. You could not be reached; it was as if you had fallen from this plane. I gathered our swiftest strike force, and sought you. The Ancients did not resist us."

"Two days?" Raziel said, a sense of vertigo gripping him. He remembered going to the bathing pool to wash away the grime of battle--had he not slipped into the water just moments ago? "...I do not remember any attack. I had just returned from battle, but ..." he said to himself, trying to think back on whether he had sensed any assault. He remembered ... something of castle walls, and of dragons?

"How was I found?" he finally asked, turning back to Anani. "Were there injuries, or evidence of any spells?" Elders did not just fall into slumber at a whim! Unless ... an uneasy prickle went down his spine as a possibility presented itself.

Anani shook his head slowly. "Newly-healed and half-healed wounds only, Sire. The Ancients claim to have moved you here themselves, but they apparently knew not enough to treat you properly." Which meant feeding well -- Raziel had not been able to swallow, had been still as a corpse, but tissues of the mouth and throat could absorb some nourishment. "The water... I cannot account for. As for spellworks --" Anani lifted his head, eyes narrowed as he gathered reports "-- we are erecting standard wards, and we are continuing to search, but we do not know. Our force breached this citadel's walls less than three hours past." Anani frowned, still displeased by the time they'd made.

"Breached the--" Raziel's eyes narrowed. "Tell me you did not precipitate a war upon the Ancients, Anani." Especially when all the cooperation the Razielim would have needed would have been theirs for the asking!

Anani stilled. "Not... precisely, Sire." For a war required at least two combatting sides, did it not? "As the Ancients did not attempt to bar our passage, we have not been forced to slay any. And injuries were... minimal."

About to snap at Anani, Raziel forced himself to restrain his ire. Truthfully, he would have done the same, had it been Kain lying helpless. And he likely would not have restrained himself to dealing out a few minor injuries. "Release any prisoners you have taken," he ordered wearily. He would need to figure out recompense for damages done ... but such matters would have to wait. "If any Guardians wish an audience, grant them entry. There are also two Ancients that have pledged their fealty to me--they should not be far. Allow them to return to their duties. How far behind is the remainder of the Clan?"

Anani's mouth tightened, though he set about relaying the orders -- most of them. _The hostages as well? Can we be certain the Ancients had naught to do with this attack?_ Aloud, he said, "The fledglings, equipment, and a guard force will be making their way slowly. They will be another three days on the road, perhaps four."

There was a scuffle from the antechamber, the liquid tones of the Ancients' tongue raised in anger -- or in scolding. Several more thumps, and Gana, a little the worse for wear, appeared through the doorway. Her passage was barred by Razielim who looked upon her with a mix of hostility and curiosity as she attempted first to push past, and then -- when it became apparent that the Razielim seemed scarcely to notice her efforts -- squeeze between them.

 _Yes. The hostages as well. I will grant there is the possibility that my ... malaise ... may have been the work of an enemy. If that is the case, then we will not uncover that disaffected creature by creating still more of them. The Ancients are a people who have little cause to set themselves against us--and I do not care to give them reason._ Raziel himself had certain suspicions--but he would not give them voice just yet.

The altercation at the door caught his attention, and Raziel sighed. "She may enter," he ordered, and the guards obediently stepped aside, too well trained to show their misgivings. Soft creatures the Ancients might be, but had they not already proved how formidable they could be in magic?

Anani nodded acknowledgment, relaying orders. “We discovered your fledgling trapped in a storeroom on the first level. May we have it brought unto you?” He paused, mouth tight. _It has clearly been fed, but the isolation… has not left it well._

Gana strode in between the flanking elders. Her injuries bore evidence of the passage of time -- old bruises were faded to a mottled purple, and she was bandaged with clean white linen. But she had newer marks as well -- her right eye was swollen half-shut, and her mouth was bloodied where she’d evidently been gagged too vigorously. Her white robe was disheveled, her feathers ruffled and bent. She glanced over Raziel, who was still in conversation with Anani, and determined that he was clearly in no immediate danger of expiring. Her attention turned next to the place where several of the Ancients’ long, ornate spears leaned against the wall, apparently confiscated from their wielders. Nekoda stood guard over the cache. Gana started for him.

Anani looked up, eyes narrowed. “You there, woman. Release Petrus first,” he snapped. Petrus had been among the first to burst in, leading the force that had scaled the outside walls of the cathedral. He’d fallen to great enwrapping tentacles of stone that had blossomed from the wall -- and while the others had subdued Gana fairly quickly, chipping Petrus out of the tough, enchanted stone now was slow and careful work. It was well indeed the vampire had no need of breath.

"My fled--?" Raziel sucked in a breath. Vorador ... And Janos! He was on his feet between one moment and the next, ignoring the gnawing of the Hunger in his belly and the weakness that still dragged at his limbs. Frustration fired his temper, fanning it into incandescent fury. "You have imprisoned Janos? Kept him from his progeny?" Janos had trusted him in the siring of Vorador, even when all others had not--Kain only knew what had happened to them during Raziel's unwitting absence!

Raziel turned in a single savage movement. _Nekoda. Gana._ His Whisper, underlined by his anger, seared through the mindtouch, allowing no room for hesitation or argument. _Nekoda--allow Gana her weapon. Both of you--if Janos be held prisoner, release him. Regardless, find him. Bring him to his fledgling--assist and protect him in whatever manner he requires. Now!_ If Vorador had descended into bestial madness at his perceived abandonment ... Raziel rounded again upon Anani.

"What has happened to Petrus?" he demanded. He was dimly aware that this sudden bout of capricious temper was unwarranted, that Anani had merely done what he thought necessary to protect his lord--but his own weariness and Hunger conspired against him, making it difficult to think. Whatever the origins of his slumber, it had done nothing to restore him ... and had, in fact, seemed to have drained him even further, in some indefinable fashion.

That worry, combined with the very real possibility that Anani's actions had only given the Ancients--and in particular, the Death Guardian--yet more cause for alarm, only stoked Raziel's ire. Their foothold in this time and place was uncertain and, at least for the moment, utterly dependant upon the Ancients' cooperation. If his firstborn's overzealousness had endangered that in any way ....

Raziel's words spread a ripple of shock through the warriors assembled. "*His* progeny?" repeated Aquila. He had participated in that ill-fated assault upon Sanctuary. "The only spawn of Janos Audron?" The word was unspoken, unwhispered, but even still it seemed audible. _Kain_.

Anani's gaze went blank as he handled a dozen threads of communication at once. _Gershom, Zimri, Goran, Simeon, Aquila. No Whisper or word of this is to leave this company. Assemble the force in the chamber atop this tower. Account for every man visually. There will be no reprisals -- no action of any kind -- without direct authorization from Raziel. Castillian, remain where you are; no Razielim is to enter the neonate's cell. Confirm._

Nekoda saluted tightly, fist over heart, as he received his orders and stepped aside for the Ancient guardswoman. Gana selected her spear, and after a faint hesitation, another one as well. Gana cleared her throat roughly. "This one is spear of Vivec..." she stated to no one in particular, hefting the second spear. She blinked and attempted to address Raziel's question. "He coming in very fast, I not know. Made the stone to cover him over. Others too, but they free already." Her high common was broken and confused with nervousness. "Very sorry. I go fix..."

"Not now, milady," hissed Nekoda, reaching out -- carefully! -- to cup her elbow and steer her more swiftly out the archway, the orderly flow of moving warriors making way for them. "Do you know where Janos might have been, three hours ago?" Gana nodded hesitantly as Nekoda hurried her out.

Anani stood before his Sire, unflinching. "No, my Lord. It appeared that the fledge was unattended for some time when we broke through the door. No Ancient has identified himself as the creature's Sire -- but then, we did not ask. A guard was placed on the neonate..." Anani frowned, swiftly rechecking the confirmations he'd received. The guard's was not among them. _Castillian!_

Raziel fought the urge to put his fist through the nearest wall. It was a surprisingly potent temptation, and in that moment he devoutly wished for nothing so much as a straightforward battle on which to vent his frustrations.

 _... apologies, my lord, I ..._ the thread of communication broke, then resumed. _...the fledge is proving quite fractious, lord, without his Sire._ A sliver of her exasperation filtered through, even as Castillian did her best to hide it. Vorador was proving a difficult charge, it seemed, even by her standards. _We have removed the bowls of water and allowed him to feed well, but ..._ The Whisper broke off again--but Anani and Raziel knew what remained unsaid. Without his maker's presence, to enforce obedience and command Vorador's instinctive devotion ...

Raziel sighed. Then, closing his eyes, reached out, hoping against hope that Janos was within his mental reach. _Janos. Are you harmed?_

The thread of Janos' mind was, in fact, quite easily reached, but for a long moment the only communication was shock, elation. _Raziel! Can it truly be you?_ Something in the words was tense, perhaps with stress -- or pain. It was difficult to tell, as the predominantly coloring emotion was simply relief. _A moment, my child. I shall ask your... companions to accompany me to your side._

Leaving Raziel to seek out Janos Audron, Anani sought Castillian once more. *We?* He'd not been present when the fledgling was discovered, but he was relatively certain she'd been posted alone. They had thought the creature but a simple fledgling, after all -- had not understood the grave danger in which any guardian would be placed. _Report, Castillian,_ he Whispered, his unease carefully concealed. What if Kain escaped her?

Again there was a long pause, then a sudden burst of contact from the far younger vampire, quickly cut off. But the brief visual she'd offered was clear -- Anani tilted his head, frowning. The chamber in which the neonate had been discovered was a warehouse of sorts, apparently, crates stacked high and many broken open. It was also broadly windowed, and would have been brightly-lit enough to cause a fledgling abject misery, at the least. But the wall openings had been covered crudely with great swaths of fabric, most still connected to their bolts, which spilled across the wet floor. The worst of the puddles were layered over with more fabric and slats of wood. Anani could not imagine any of the Ancients or the Razielim doing such a slipshod job of the matter -- yet nor would any normal fledge have been capable of such planning. A white-robed human, freshly dead, was sprawled and bloodless on the floor.

The fledgling itself was filthy -- most of its clothing had been discarded, but even still, blood and gore from at least several days past smeared it, clumped its remaining into spikes. Someone -- surely not the fledge itself -- had made an effort at washing: the neonate still bore the corded scars of water burns on both hands and down one side of its body. It approached, narrow new fangs bared.

 _Castillian. Assure the fledgling that you shall presently reunite it with Janos Audron, provided it remains calm. Do you receive?_ Mouth set in a grim line, Anani relayed Castillian's image to Raziel.

Handling the multiple threads of communication was a difficult task--yet Raziel did it, long practice in handling both Clan affairs and battlefield tactics coming to his aid.

 _Janos--one of my Clan is with Vorador. He requires your presence, most urgently; are you able to attend to him, or shall I have him brought here?_ Assuming the fractious fledgling would cooperate, which was by no means certain. Still, Vorador *was* a fledgling, and far from the strength he would someday inherit. If necessary, Castillian would bind him and carry him bodily, should Raziel command it.

In order to reinforce his concerns, Raziel sent on the images of the injured and dishevelled fledgling, just as Castillian had seen him. As he did so, he could not help but wonder if Vorador had placed those haphazard cloths and boards in an attempt to protect himself from the light and the water, or if another had done it for him. If it were the former, then it proved he was capable of a great deal more than mere instinct. Which was almost unheard of, at least in a Razielim fledge ...

Still entombed under eighteen inches of stone in the next room, Petrus only just then received news that Raziel lived. He promptly sought his Sire's mind. _Welcome back, my Lord,_ a brief pause. _I cannot hear a thing out there -- does that woman who buried me yet live? What a vixen she was!_

Raziel took up the thread of Petrus' Whisper. _I am gratified to find my vassal was so effective in my defense,_ he said dryly, _Even if you were the unfortunate victim of her efforts. Yes, she still lives--and if you are patient, you will be released in order to convey your admiration in person._ Not that Petrus had a choice in the matter ....

Petrus' mindtouch was its usual flamboyant purple, evidently uninjured and undaunted. _Assuredly I shall, Sire..._ as soon as he found a new hat. He feared his was quite crushed -- the big red plume would never be the same after this.

Janos', in comparison, was grey with fatigue. _Vorador. Yes, I am aware of his condition_. A pause, as Janos evidently focused on another portion of the image Raziel had transferred. _It has... slain another of the servants, then?_

"My Lord," Anani said, at an apparent break in the multitude of crossing conversations, "Thurstan and the other mages are now prepared to erect the standard sheath of wardcraftings about this chamber. May they proceed?" His sharp gaze lingered on Raziel's posture, the tenseness and exhaustion his Sire concealed.

Raziel gave a sharp wave of his hand. "Proceed, Anani," he answered distractedly, while at the same time returning his attention to Janos. Leaving aside the question of the servant for the moment, he Whispered, _Perhaps it is best if he join you here, with me. It appears there have been several ... misunderstandings ... in my absence._

Breaking off, he turned his attention to more familiar minds. _Nekoda. Escort Janos--*gently*--to me. What is his condition?_ He little beliked the echoes of pain behind Janos' thoughts ....

Without waiting for an answer, he cast out another Whisper. _Castillian. Bring the fledgling to my chambers. Subdue him if you must, but try to coerce him first._ If Vorador truly was more advanced than a new-made Razielim ... chivvying him about was almost certain to garner his ire. _I will send another--_ He thought for a moment, searching memory for the Razielim who--other than Anani or himself--had the most experience in fostering fledges. _\--Tekoa. Assist Castillian. For the time being, your duty is to help Janos with his fledge, once they both arrive. No Ancient has ever sired before ... they are ill-prepared for a fledgling's whims and appetites._

A few moments, and Nekoda replied. _We are just coming upon them now, Sire._ There was a brief pause as Nekoda confirmed Janos' identity and assessed his new charge's condition. _Minor injuries are apparent -- his right hand is bandaged and in a sling, and he bears scrapes and bruises. He moves quite stiffly. The guards posted on him, however, report that he was not damaged in the taking of this citadel._

As Anani relayed instruction, the layered wards drew into place around Raziel's chambers, like the crossing of a cloud across the sun. Whispers arriving from outside the tower seemed muted through that veil, though still audible to those minds which had been keyed for access: Raziel, Anani, and certain of the generals. Even magics too subtle for most Razielim to sense would be hard-pressed to navigate the slowly thickening bubble of disrupting energy, and thus, its contents were protected from outside influence -- for a time, at least. Anani nodded in satisfaction as the shield stabilized, and looked to his Sire, alert for any sign of ease or relaxation. He proffered the Ancients' goblet once more, and lifted his chin a little to expose the pale column of his throat as well. Sire, it has been at least two nights and a battle since you fed properly, he reminded Raziel carefully. Frankly, he rather suspected his Sire hadn't eaten since before the long flight here -- and even then had partaken but lightly. _And it will be some few minutes before your... before Kain is escorted here._

A certain tension--almost imperceptible save to a keen and knowledgeable eye--faded from Raziel's shoulders. Too distracted to analyze the change in the air, Raziel was nonetheless aware that something *had* changed with the placement of the wards. Which only strengthened his suspicions ...

Taking the goblet, Raziel gave Anani a wearily sardonic look. His firstborn's assumptions would have been amusing, in any other circumstance .... "No, Anani. It is not Kain I strive to protect." He deliberately chose to speak aloud, knowing the others would hear. "The fledgling's name is Vorador, firstborn of Janos Audron--and the first created vampire ever to exist in Nosgoth." He took a deep drink of the goblet, savoring the magically-created blood as it did its best to fill the hollow hunger in his belly. Do you comprehend now, my own, why this creature's welfare--and that of Janos--is so important?

Anani's eyes narrowed in calculation. He lifted a talon, gesturing for a runner to bring more of the Ancients' vitae -- the stuff was thin, and Raziel would need more. Vorador. A legendary figure and the forger of the Reaver, said to have by turns assisted and hindered Kain's exploits -- though mostly the latter. His origins varied with the myth. But in none of the tales was Vorador granted the distinction of being of the same source as *Kain.*

The Razielim's mouth twisted wryly -- the legends cast Vorador as usurper and upstart, but as Vorador was in fact the firstborn... perhaps Kain himself, when he arose, might fit that role more truthfully. "I expect more of our historical dogmas will bear revisiting over the coming years," Anani admitted wryly. _I do_ , my Lord, he replied, _and I shall impress that importance upon the men. A line of concern appeared between his brows. Is the neonate entirely unbiddable, however, that its Sire should not keep it by his side?_

Raziel's expression darkened. _I do not believe so._ Truthfully, it would be more accurate to say he hoped that was not so; but to say as much was akin to admitting weakness in front of his firstborn, and that he was not inclined to do. Not when the tattered shreds of that strange lethargy still clung to his bones ...

 _With Vorador, a new breed of vampire has come to the world. Our breed ... which is very different from the Ancients, even if we inherited their power and their curse. He drained the goblet with one long swallow, his throat working. Think on what you have seen of the Ancients, Anani. They are powerful, yes, with knowledge beyond our ken ... and they are also kind. Merciful. Peaceful. And ... oblivious._ He set the goblet aside, fixing his gaze upon Anani--his firsborn, plucked from the ranks of the Sarafan itself. _The humans we have known ... how do you think they will treat such creatures? The world we have come from has no place for such softness--the Clans would have crushed it underfoot, had the Sarafan not already done so. Is it any surprise the Ancients are ignorant of how to properly handle a hungry and intemperate fledgling?_

Anani tilted his head slightly, studying his Sire's expression even as he reached out to take another full chalace from the runner. _Our breed, Sire? For would Vorador truly be akin to Kainites, even to the degree that one clan was similar to another? Or would he be something... quite unknown?_ Even Raziel himself had never encountered any of Vorador's get, in those long-distant ages that heralded the Empire.

There was likely no way to know. Best, therefore, to err on the side of caution. _The discipline necessary to survive can be taught by other than the creature's Sire, if... necessary,_ he mused, studying the goblet of vitae briefly before offering it to his Lord. The fluid was pinkish and thin, but scent and texture marked it fresh, at least -- he'd not risk giving Raziel anything in the least tainted, under the circumstances. _But we may be less able to compensate for the Ancients' obliviousness, particularly over the span of the fledgling's tenderest centuries._ How could Vorador be shielded from his own Sire's blindness? _Shall we put to the knife all citadel slaves? Or perhaps only those who might be aware of Vorador's raising?_

Raziel took the fresh goblet, but did not drink as he contemplated Anani's suggestion. Then, reluctantly, he shook his head. As tempting as it was to seek a swift and bloody solution to this imbroglio, such a massacre would only cause more problems than it solved. _No ... killing the human witnesses would serve us little. Not while Vorador still retains his human semblance as a fledgling. Given his fame as a smith and favored of the Ancients, any human who knew him in life would recognize him, and the problem would arise anew. It will take at least a generation, perhaps two, for the humans to forget ..._ Short of putting the entire human population in and around Aptera to the sword--a solution Raziel doubted the Ancients would approve--there was simply no way to keep Vorador a secret for long. He could be kept mewed away for a short while--perhaps even as long as a year or two, given sufficient skill at discipline and diversion--but eventually the new-made vampire would need to learn the lessons offered by the wider world, regardless of the risk.

 _I will undertake the task of lessoning Janos--and perhaps Vorador, as well._ A Kainite fledgling was unlikely to heed even Raziel at this stage, but perhaps ... perhaps Vorador could be ... not reasoned with, but manipulated. For Raziel had some inkling of the old goblin's appetites, his greed for beautiful things. If those instincts were still there, then perhaps they could be used to persuade an overeager fledgling.

Anani nodded, though reluctantly. Perhaps a cordon, then, for the moment? And as for longer-term security....

 _My Lord. Janos Audron._ The Razielim warrior's sending was tinged with awe, caution, surprise -- Janos was legendary, had cast a winged reign of terror, but in the flesh he seemed... rather small. And much-battered, and also... polite. At Raziel's acknowledgement, the guard stepped aside, and Janos entered, Nekoda and Gana close behind.

The Guardian seemed hardly to notice the many Razielim present -- his attentions were solely upon Raziel, as if he had scarce dared believe the evidence of the mental contact. Nekoda's report had been essentially correct; Janos was both more damaged and considerably more harried than when last Raziel had seen him. "Raziel," he said, nothing but relief in his tone. Janos stepped forward, unbandaged hand extended -- though the nearby Razielim stirred uneasily, they did not stop him. "We feared the worst. What did the rebels do to you, my child?"

Raziel set the goblet aside, rising to meet the Ancient, his grim expression fading into open welcome at the sight of Janos. "Janos ... it appears that you have been treated ill in my absence." He placed his hand atop Janos', taloned fingers curling carefully over those softer blue digits, heedless of his own nudity or his Razielim's unease.

"I do not believe this malaise was inflicted by the humans, Janos," he continued. "I have not yet tracked down the origins of this attack, but it was far too potent and subtle for human magics." Human spells tended towards the loud and destructive--fireballs, lightning and the like. The ... dream? memory? ... that had held him in its grasp had been neither. If Turel had not been there--

\--Turel? Raziel stilled as an icy frisson prickled down his spine. Turel was dead twice over ... what had he to do with all this? Pushing away the thought for now, he met Janos' concerned gaze. "Has Vorador done this to you? Or was it another?"

Against Raziel's palm, Janos' skin was very warm, the texture like the finest-grained leather. The Ancients did not, in general, broadcast an aura of latent power as did the Razielim, but touch brought the taste of Janos' energy into clearer focus, and...

...the creature under his talons could, almost, have been Kain. Almost. The crackle of lightning was there, ozone on the back of Raziel's tongue, iron in the earth. To be sure, the depth was not so great, the dimension less, the impression of terrible age all but lacking -- but those would come, with time.

That impression of power was perhaps, for Raziel, somewhat at odds with Janos' expression of worry, relief, and elation as he looked upon the Ancients' Messiah. "A toxin, then? The Hylden were ever fond of poisons and chemicals, and their tunnels are pocked with lingering contaminants -- and perhaps even magics -- of which we know little." What medical treatment was even possible, in a creature so physically different? Let alone one entirely unresponsive, apparently dead. "Nevertheless, I shall summon unto you our most experienced chirugeons. As for Vorador..." Janos paused, abruptly at a loss. Illogically, something in him protested the thought of corrective retribution against Vorador, most particularly by Raziel's hand, even for the creature's savaging of the servants. Others among the Ancients had proposed keeping Vorador in stocks or chains. "I... do not believe he intended harm."

It was a potent temptation to luxuriate in that power, so akin to that of his Sire--to succumb to that illusion of protection. Yet Raziel could little afford such self-deception, especially with the eyes of his Clan upon him.

"You are likely correct," Raziel agreed mildly. The rights and responsibilities of a Sire to his get were something that even a clanlord did not interfere with lightly. To intervene in the treatment of, say, a Dumahim or Zephonim fledge, was almost unheard of. As first Lieutenant, Raziel once had the authority to make his will manifest regardless--but in doing so, he would have most certainly earned the ire of his brothers, as well as the resentment of the principals involved.

To meddle in the handling of Janos' only fledge--it was a proposition that would require a careful touch, to say the least.

"Fledglings oft do not yet know their own strength, nor comprehend such niceties as restraint," Raziel said, choosing a carefully neutral tone. "Such things require time and experience to relearn. It may be, however, that with your assistance, I can impress upon Vorador a modicum of ... moderation ... in his appetites."

Janos inclined his head with weary gratitude. "You have my heartfelt appreciation, though..." a shadow of foreboding crossed his features. If Vorador was to be damaged or confined further in the lessoning... Janos felt oddly both ill and restless, but he could not pinpoint the impetus precisely. "What does such impression entai..."

The serrated talons of elder Razielim afforded them good grip on the many cornices and decorations sheathing the outside of the tower, and the ascent up to Raziel's chambers was not a particularly difficult one. Or at least, it wouldn't have been, were not the climbers heavily burdened. Raziel's sharp hearing caught a rather florid breathed curse, then several heavy thumps in the vicinity of the open balcony in the next room.

Vorador appeared abruptly through the open archway, momentarily in profile as he hissed in fearless aggravation in the direction of a bemused Razielim elder. Then, as if drawn by some invisible thread, Vorador turned... and caught sight of Janos. Nekoda stood between them, back to Vorador, having escorted his charge to Raziel's side.

"'Ware -- it has learned to wield...." Tekoa started, his boots scraping on the marble as he vaulted over the balcony railing. But Vorador was already moving, determination ablaze in his eyes, fist uplifted to sweep the obstruction from his path.

An elder such as Nekoda was a difficult creature to surprise, particularly for a comparatively clumsy and slow neonate. The creatures had little natural armnament, and certainly not sense enough to employ ones of steel. The Razielim turned with lazy ease and caught -- carefully -- Vorador's intemperate blow... and then snarled as the point of his *own* long dagger, snatched from his belt, found sheath between his ribs. Vorador lunged past him, intent on his maker.

"Vorador! Do not--" Janos cried, appalled, even as Nekoda pulled the blade from his side, snarling. The Razielim made another grab for the fledgling vampire and missed, Vorador evading his grasp with native cunning and speed.

At the sight of the creature barrelling down upon them, Janos stepped backwards without thinking, tugging Raziel with him. That tiny movement, unfortunately, only served to stoke Vorador's possessive jealousy. The dark-powerful-one--it meant to take his sire away from him! Vorador lunged, now wanting nothing more than to sink his fangs into the interloper's throat--

\--only to be caught and yanked upward, into the air. Blue telekinetic energy limned Raziel's talons as he held Vorador pinned. The fledgling squalled in frustrated rage, struggling futilely against his invisible bonds.

 _Calm,_ Raziel Whispered into that frenzied and inchoate mind. Then he reached out to Janos. _Vorador will believe your assurances over any other, Janos--can you calm him, that I might better communicate?_

Touching Vorador's mind was like reaching into a morass -- dark and torpid rivulets of anger, a profusion of green jealousies, the hot exotic blooming of vice and desire... and underneath, a folded sheen of steel. Intellect coiled serpentine through it all, and it roused at Raziel's contact. The reply was nothing so cohate as a sentence; it contained only dim fragments of words, some likely in languages Raziel had no way of knowing. But the fledgling's command soon became clear enough _\-- Give give give! Give I - give to me - tearing you into small small small pieces - give me soft-silky-delectable-radiant give me - very small pieces - give *now* give!_ Once he had Janos, then he could deal with the interlopers at his pleasure.

But slipping the bonds of Raziel's kinetic shackles would have taken far, far more power and discipline than the neonate posessed. He snarled as he hung helpless in the weave of Raziel's telekenesis. Held still like this, it was evident that the fledgling's first days had not been easy ones. His water-scarring was fairly extensive, overlaid with fresher scrapes, perhaps at the hands of his erstwhile watchers. The grime of his death was still upon him in places, and had been joined by more.

"Calm?" asked Janos, tearing his gaze from Nekoda, who was wiping the narrow dagger clean with a scrap of fabric, apparently not greatly concerned by the stabbing, now that Raziel had matters firmly in hand. "I..." Vorador was worse, this time, than before -- more furious, more aggressive. He seemed to grow only more so with each meeting. But the Guardian swallowed, nodded, and made to withdraw his hand from Raziel's and step forward. _Easy, Vorador. These our our guests, and are not to be harmed...._

Castillian joined Tekoa at the archway. She looked over the scene, then quickly reported to Raziel's firstborn. _Lord Anani. We passed a disused storeroom of human foodstuffs along the way, and I took the liberty...._

Anani nodded, well-pleased, and gestured the younger vampire forward. She presented him a leather flask, full, and Anani unstoppered it, checked the liquid within. The alcohol was clear and strong, suitable for use on a fledgling.

Vorador's struggles paused momentarily at Janos' sending, though his snarling did not abate, even at his Sire's approach. Injured, hungry, filthy, and harassed beyond forebearance, the new-made vampire was not so easily soothed.

 _Anani._ Raziel's nose had been enough to tell him what Castillan had found. _Assist Janos in the use of what you have found--but not until Vorador has calmed somewhat._ It should serve well enough as added inducement to what Raziel planned to offer, should his gamble pay off. And gamble it was: to suggest to a Kainite fledge that his Sire was anything other than the omnipotent center of the universe was madness--and yet, that was precisely what Raziel was about to try.

 _Vorador._ The Whisper was dark, potent, stabbing into those inchoate and angry thoughts as Raziel closed his mind to all others, focusing only upon the fledgling before him. Doing his best to forge a connection upon the only level on which Vorador was capable of communicating, Raziel sent images and impressions more than words. Ones of himself, his Razielim: darksome and hungry, brooding and elemental, wings spreading outward until the very stars were blotted out of the sky. Nothing that could be outfought, outwitted--but an impenetrable wall of vampiric power, where every turn, every demand from that fledgling mind was met only with silence and indifference.

Undaunted, the fledgling squalled in defiance; then stopped short as the darkness spoke.

 _Vorador. Look._

Raziel now summoned a different image, Whispering it into that frantic mind. The subject was familiar enough, though one that any Ancient would have been hard-pressed to identify ... for it was a Janos as none had ever seen him. Drawing upon his recollections of the intricate and fragile fancies once created by Melchiahim artisans, Raziel wove sensory impressions into memory, creating for Vorador an image of a masterwork; an angel made, impossibly, of purest blue sapphire, framed by pinions of dark razored steel, rippling with the light, hammered impossibly fine and gilded with gold. One that moved, and spoke, and *flew* with a grace beyond measure ... adorned with talons of obsidian whetted to perfect keenness, and eyes the color of ancient amber upon a strong-planed face, all fitted together with exquisite care into a creature such as the world would never see again. One that belonged to Vorador, to savor and admire, to protect and cherish, bound by blood ....

The fledgling's enraged Whispers had changed, the violence fading, subsumed into want as Raziel's images fuelled Vorador's own innate avarice. And now, with Vorador's greed at a fevered pitch, came the crux of the lesson.

Images of those pinions bent, the exquisite artistry of blue-steel wings broken and mauled by incautious fledgling hands. Sickening images of this irreplaceable and fine thing destroyed by Vorador's own rage, sapphire-jewelled skin gouged and dulled, limbs broken, eyes filmed over and sightless, never to speak, never to fly, never again to taste that sweet blood, to feel it upon his tongue ....

 _Janos._ The darkness was indifferent, implacable. _Yours. Protect._ Connected by blood, by time and by fate. _Cherish_. Or have it disappear. Forever.

 _Mine!_ Vorador's affirmation was furious, the rage tempered now both with rapacity and fear. The images of fine-spun, living art were very much pleasing, for it seemed only reasonable that these alien-feeling strangers, despite their professed indifference, appreciated Vorador's soft-silky-delectable-radiant in much the same way as did Vorador himself. And generating envy in the hearts of others was by no means undesireable.

But how dare the dark one even entertain the notion of such destruction! Vorador's posessions would not be damaged; he'd not permit it, would slay them all if they... Vorador's attention flicked to another of the dark ones, lesser perhaps by a degree. He hissed murderously as Anani cupped -- carefully -- Janos' elbow to guide him closer; the Ancient had been cautiously keeping his distance from the immobilized fledgling.

Others of the Razielim, recognizing the gravity of the situation, were clearing the room -- young fledglings were difficult enough to manage without the addition of multiple distractions. Nekoda, sheathing his cleaned dagger neatly -- the grip was well-shaped for an elder's hand, and the fine point was useful even to a taloned creature -- gestured his Clanlord's servant out as well. Gana hesitated, gaze flicking between the dark blood smeared at Nekoda's side, and the tableau before her. She'd not actually seen the thing Janos had created, before now, and it was fearsome indeed. At Nekoda's insistance, she followed him out, but only for a moment -- she returned promptly, carrying one of the Ancient's customary wing-slit robes. She headed for Raziel, and Nekoda glanced back, frowning.

His will wholly bent upon the recalcitrant fledgling before him, Raziel paid no heed to Gana's entrance, or to the robe held in her hands. At the moment his nudity was the least of his concerns--maintaining his telekinetic grip upon the younger vampire, in addition to his grasp upon Vorador's frenzied mind, took all his concentration.

Once again, Raziel sent images, refining them with each twist and denial from the fledgling's thoughts; images of short-clawed fingers, carefully cupping a fragile and glowing blue figure, protecting it ... of Vorador's hands caressing jewelled skin softly, carefully, keeping clawtips away from unmarred flesh ... _Softly, carefully ... do not harm. Understand, Vorador? Protect Janos._

There was something profoundly unnatural in using such a primitive mindtouch--the equivalent of baby-talk--to *Vorador*, of all creatures. But Raziel could not trust that anything more complex would be even understood, much less remembered ....

With Vorador distracted, Anani moved in, a cloth dampened by alcohol in his hands. "Use this," he instructed Janos, his voice quiet so as not to distract Raziel. "It will not harm as water does, and perhaps he shall calm further once he is clean." He handed the wetted cloth to Janos, and stepped a half-pace away, alert for any sign the fledgling might slip his bonds.

Vorador jerked his head, so well as he was able, pupils abruptly contracting as Janos took up the scrap of fabric. The fledgling had learned, and quite well, to beware anything wet held in his Sire's hands. The liquid had a different scent, but that was no guarantee of innocuousness. Vorador bared his teeth in a snarl again, a grimace this time as much of trepidation as anger.

Even as Vorador tensed, Gana approached Raziel with the robe. Nekoda hissed in a breath; he turned, hesitated, unwilling to dart forward and seize the woman, lest that cause yet greater commotion. Perhaps better accustomed to Ancient mages and their innate abilities, Gana held open the garment... and tried to drape it over Raziel's shoulders.

The interruption was untimely. Focused so intently upon one mind, one spellweave, Raziel was abruptly forced to accommodate a third demand, and for an instant, the reins of the first two slackened.

Vorador struck silently. Tearing one arm free of the kinetic shackle with strength he should not have possessed, he seized Janos' wrist, dragged his Sire behind him and away from the powerful -- and undoubtedly covetous -- strangers. Janos gasped harshly, skin soft under a bruising grasp. He staggered, nearly fell, and reached out for balance, clapping the wet cloth against Vorador's forearm.

Raziel immediately refocused his attentions, suppressing the urge to snarl at Gana's ill-aimed assistance--and at Vorador's greedy grasp. To challenge the fledgling now would only reaffirm Vorador's conviction that the other vampires around him wished to take away his Sire.

Tamping down his irritation with an iron will, Raziel's forced his Whisper to remain calm, indifferent--as if Janos' wounds meant nothing to him. _You harm Janos._ The accusation was cold, accompanied with images of azure soft skin marred by Vorador's pale fingers. _Look at what you have done._ Raziel's mental touch hardened, became the whipcrack of authority. _Look!_

Held pinned by Vorador's acquisitive grip, Janos found himself caught by an inquisitive golden gaze. Vorador had been expecting more pain--but instead there was only the touch of ... wetstuff that did not burn? Anani had taken an abortive step forward, intent upon rescuing Janos from his errant progeny--only to stop short as Raziel's hand flew up in a silent command to halt.

Much as he wanted to separate Vorador from Janos, and to protect the Ancient from further harm--to intervene now would only undo whatever progress Raziel might have made. There would be time enough later for discipline; for now, they needed to establish what bonds they could between fledgling and Sire, regardless of how dissimilar they might be.

For his part, Anani was utterly still, coiled with undeathly tension -- Raziel's least movement would suffice to unleash him. Anani could break the fledgling's arm and free Janos before the creature even reacted.

Vorador hissed briefly in Raziel's direction -- his arrogance riled at the order -- but distractedly and without real venom. He had what he wanted, now, after all. The second dark-powerful figure had apparently not moved -- Anani's abortive movement forward had been too fast for the distracted fledgling to even follow. That left Vorador with but two central confusions: the notburning wetstuff, and... hn. Janos' shoulder had been wrapped to keep it immobile, but the place Vorador had seized was bare. The skin there was smooth and warm and soft and... shadowed with a blossoming purple, just as the greater dark one claimed. Vorador's bright golden gaze, suddenly tense with confusion, sought Janos', read apprehension there.

A few moments of indecision, and Vorador abruptly released his Sire, only to close his hand instead around the close-woven linen of the sling that supported Janos' damaged arm. Vorador cast a narrow-eyed look around him, making certain the nearby figures would not take advantage of his more tenuous grasp upon his prize.

Moving cautiously and quietly, Nekoda stepped forward and curled his talons around the upper arm of Raziel's impudent attendant. When Gana resisted, starting to protest, as if she realized not what her interruption had wrought, Nekoda Whispered the image of the lump of stone that still entombed Petrus, his sending colored with his aggravation. Frowning, the Ancient allowed herself to be escorted out, leaving the robe half-draped over Raziel's shoulders.

Raziel, pleased by Vorador's new realization, if not his possessiveness, allowed himself to relax minutely. He sent a wordless Whisper of approval, but it was not Raziel's approbation that Vorador sought--not as he was now. In this moment, Janos was the center of his world; and it would be the Ancient's care--or lack of it--that would drive home the lessons that Raziel sought to teach.

Carefully disengaging the focus of his mental touch from Vorador, Raziel reached out to Janos. _My apologies for your new injury,_ he Whispered with genuine regret. _It was necessary to prove to Vorador that he was causing you harm. He is afraid that we will take you from him._ Raziel's translation of Vorador's intentions was perhaps unnecessary; the fledgling's fleeting thoughts and inchoate instincts were painted with broad strokes upon Vorador's every expression and gesture. Still, Raziel wanted no further misunderstandings.

 _If you would perhaps use the cloth to soothe and clean him somewhat ... your attentions will allay his suspicions. My Razielim should then be able to assist with his care, under your guidance ..._

A Kainite sire would hardly have welcomed such interference. But Janos, hiding his apprehension, merely nodded calmly. The images that Raziel had sent to his ... to Vorador were flattering and a little disconcerting, and he could not help but wonder if there had been any truth in them. Did this creature truly see him in such a manner? Did Raziel?

 _Very well._ Turning his attention back to the new-made vampire, Janos tentatively extended the cloth once more, lifting it to gently lay it upon a bloody smear over those pale fingers. Vorador flinched, but did not loosen his grip--and Janos began to wipe away the evidence of his progeny's ravenous appetite. _Easy ... it will not harm you,_ he Whispered, wondering if this once-human creature even understood him.

Raziel's sending, the wash of praise he directed towards the fledgling, met with unexpected reply -- a flicker of acknowledgement, a confused and thoroughly distracted, yet pleased, contact -- as if Vorador were uncertain whether Raziel warranted further threatening or closer attention. That was unusual. To a fledgling, any creature or event that was not immediate threat or immediate food was immaterial beside its Sire. Even Rahab, thrust into Raziel's care, had not been capable of relating to his elder sibling on anything but the most basal level for several weeks. But the contact was there, briefly, all the same.

Vorador rumbled, a quiet and distracted growl, as he watched the passage of the notburning wetstuff over his skin. The rag grew pink; his own flesh was strange-looking once clean, the lingering tan appearing painted over ashy grey. Gradually he relaxed in his kinetic bonds, slowly learning to associate the sharp stink of alcohol with the cool tingly feel of being clean. Janos reached only so far as his elbow before the rag was saturated, and Anani stepped forward -- just enough to hand the Ancient another dampened scrap of fabric. Though Vorador eyed the lesser dark one suspiciously, he did not protest the intrusion. Vorador tugged a little against his bonds, testing their limits, trying to reach enough to expose his other arm for his Sire's services.

After a moment's evaluation, Raziel loosened his telekinetic grip, allowing Vorador to move freely. He remained alert for any need to restrain the impetuous fledge, should Vorador offer further violence against his Sire.

When Vorador did not lunge or bat him away, as he had with their earlier ill-fated attempts at bathing, Janos relaxed minutely. It was strange, to wipe away the filth from this--no longer human, he must remember that--from Vorador's skin, as if he were a servant. But in an odd way, it did not seem demeaning, but felt more akin to preening another Ancient. Vorador's pleasure and relief at the cleansing touch was evident as the new-made vampire stretched out his other arm to be cleaned, and Janos continued his gentle ministrations, somewhat heartened by Vorador's newfound calm.

Several more alcohol-damp cloths were dirtied; the gore in some places was dried so thick it peeled away from Vorador like a dark and tattered skin. Janos paused at the remains of Vorador's once finely-embroidered vest, but though the scraps were also filthy he could see no means of removing them from Vorador without the creature's cooperation. And Vorador, eyes half-lidded, seemed little inclined to help. Janos accepted a new cloth, and reached to daub the dried spatters off the fledgling's face, instead.

Vorador snuffed a hard exhale as the alcohol fumes tickled his newly-heightened senses. He tolerated the cleaning for a while, until Janos reached the raised runnels of water-scars on his scalp. Some places were still raw, and the liquor stung. Vorador shook his head, straightened, and examined his Sire more carefully -- particularly the blossoming bruise on the Ancient's arm. Experimentally, and with great care, Vorador passed the pad of one finger over the place. The stain did not disappear. He tried again, a little harder, and won nothing but a flinch from his maker. Firming his grip on Janos' sling, Vorador reached for the alcohol-dampened bit of fabric, still held in Janos' taloned grip.

Janos, uncertain of what Vorador intended, resisted that insistent tug for a moment--then, with a quick glance at Raziel, released the wet rag into Vorador's grip. It was not as if the creature could maim anyone with it, after all!

Raziel was silent and still, allowing his presence to recede from Vorador's narrowed perceptions, even as he continued to be a watchful guardian of Janos' safety. His eyes widened, however, at Vorador's obvious intentions. That Vorador associated the wet cloth with comfort and cleanliness was not remarkable; but that he would attempt to return his Sire's ministrations was, quite frankly, extraordinary. New-raised vampires were notoriously self-absorbed, consumed by the newness of undead instinct and the overwhelming sensory impressions of the world in which they had been reborn. Yet Vorador was proving as unpredictable in this as he was in all else ....

 _He is doing well,_ Raziel Whispered to Janos. _Seldom have I seen any fledge capable of grasping the way of things around him so swiftly ..._

 _..Verily?_ Janos sent, pleased for a moment -- whatever Vorador had become, at least he was not a substandard specimen, and that was certainly reassuring -- then jerked as the creature applied the cloth to his arm, pressing hard over the bruise, efforting to scrub away the imperfection. It hurt. _That is quite enou...!_ Janos started, trying to twist aside, thoroughly disordering his bandages.

Accustomed to Janos' attempts to escape, Vorador seized the front of his Sire's robes instead as the sling threatened to unravel, and hauled the Ancient back.

Raziel's warning growl filled the room, low and primal. It reverberated through the air, and vibrated against Vorador's very bones in potent warning. Lessons must be taught--but that did not mean he intended to stand by and watch as Janos was abused.

Raziel's warning did not have quite the intended effect, however. Vorador released his grip upon Janos' clothing--but only to reclaim a better handhold. He pivoted in order to bare fangs and snarl his defiance at the elder vampire.

 _Janos ... you must discipline him. Teach him that he must heed you, and the consequences when he does not, just like any other child._ Yet how was one to do this when the 'child' was far stronger than the sire? Must he assign a Razielim guardian to enforce the edicts Janos himself could not?

While that might serve, it was hardly an ideal solution. _Is there any magic you know that would assist in this? Or perhaps--some way to forge a deeper connection, one that would ensure that Vorador feels the pain he inflicts? Your pain and your anger may serve as a deterrant against this misbehavior ..._

 _...Consequences..._ The look Janos turned to Raziel contained shades of weariness, a patient kind of acceptance, discomfort more than merely physical, perhaps even a hint of irony, but none of the fury a Razielim would have evidenced long before now. _The mageries of which you speak do exist, Raziel, but are not employed. Not since the Hylden war, and I... would not employ them now._ The sending was quiet, firm, but a statement of preference, rather than intent. Janos, of all Ancients, would not disobey the word of the Divine One, the emmisary of God. The prospect of playing the agent of Vorador's further distress was itself distressing; but if the creature would not otherwise learn, and had to remain confined... which was the lesser evil?

Raziel bit back another growl--this one born of sheerest frustration. No Razielim would have ever allowed the liberties Vorador was currently taking with his Sire, much less Raziel himself. But _Janos' authority *had* to be paramount, if he stood any chance of becoming Vorador's sire in truth as well as blood._

 _As you wish,_ Raziel said, inclining his head slightly in acknowledgment of Janos' will. _Would you prefer Anani restrain him, then?_ Vorador was no longer actively mauling the Ancient, at least--but he still had a possessive grip upon a handful of Janos' robes, growling under his breath as he glared at the two elder vampires.

 _I... perhaps that would be for the best,_ Janos sent after a moment's hesitation, as Vorador took advantage of his inattention to capture his newly-injured arm. The alcohol-damp rag was chill against the skin of his wrist. Vorador bent to examine the bruise which stubbornly refused to be washed away.

At Raziel's motion, his firstborn circled quietly -- keeping neatly out of Raziel's line of view... and of his telekinesis, should his Sire choose to employ that magic again -- to move swiftly behind Vorador. His sharp gaze flicked over Vorador, his stance, his grasp on the Ancient, his bearing. The problem was a tricky one: Vorador could damage Janos quite easily when separated from him, if Anani were not very precise indeed.

The fledgling glanced briefly to Anani at his approach, but as he was not immediately being threatened, Vorador appeared far more interested in his task at hand. With more care, he poked the wetted cloth at the blemish on Janos' forearm, as if that might erase the bruise. Strange that the fledgling seemed to have little experience interacting with its sire... the creature was near a handful of days old, was it not? Anani, his body otherwise settled into the undeathly stillness that presaged explosive action, frowned. _My Lord. ...Has the fledgling been permitted to familiarize itself with its maker?_

Drawn out of his preoccupied annoyance, Raziel blinked, tilting his head as he considered the question, watching Vorador's single-minded focus. The old goblin that he had known--an epithet that, in this time and place, Vorador had yet to truly earn--had certainly been a possessive and self-indulgent creature. Raziel had assumed that this Vorador's precipitous actions had been a result of that selfsame greed--but perhaps he had been too quick to ascribe an elder's flaws to an unformed fledgling?

 _An interesting question, Anani--and one to which I do not have an answer._ There had been the battle, the attempted assassination, and Janos' desperate resurrection of Vorador at Raziel's insistence. Afterwards--afterwards had been Gana's rescue, and the aftermath of Vivec's impetuous attack, the pool--and then nothing ... for days, if Anani was to be believed. "Janos ... how much time have you spent with Vorador since the night of his rebirth?" Raziel knew Vorador had been locked away; it was not an uncommon practice, especially for fledges that could not be trusted to remain where they were left.

Janos tried, delicately, to remove his abused arm from the creature's ministrations; he sighed as Vorador hissed and seized his wrist again. The creature's short, sharp noise, even wordless, sounded like a reprimand. This was the worst part -- for Janos knew quite well that the creature, that Vorador, would not let him go easily. There would be blades drawn, and spells of paralyzing cast.... at least when Janos was not present, the creature was reportedly quiet. "Perhaps an hour, or less, in total. It was thought best to keep exposure to a minimum; my presence seems to but aggravate him further."

An *hour*? When fledglings could take *days* before they settled into their new existence? Appalled by Janos' ignorance, Raziel let out a sigh, covering his face with one taloned hand in a rare show of weariness. It was almost as if he were dealing with two fledges, rather than just one ...

"Janos ... it was not aggravation you saw. It was desperation." Raziel straightened, absent-mindedly tugging the loose robe further over his shoulders, but leaving it unlaced. Ignoring the small voice that insisted he had already meddled far too much, he gave Anani a subtle signal to stand ready--and approached them.

"In this moment, you are the center of his universe," he said quietly, ignoring Vorador's snarling expression at his approach. Taking up another cloth, he did not try to break Vorador's hold upon Janos' arm--but instead reached out to stroke it down the back of one pale shoulder, wiping at a smear Janos had not yet reached. Then, transferring his attentions to Janos, he did the same to the Ancient, wiping away a tiny smear of blood along one bicep and matter-of-factly straightening disarranged robes, as if he were nothing more than a manservant. "Without you, he is lost. Cold down to his very bones, and hungry, and alone in a world now completely strange to him."

Vorador snarled, a rumble akin in tone to the warning Raziel had issued but a minute before, and was visibly taken aback when the powerful dark one gave no pause. He watched Raziel handle the wet scrap of fabric -- plucked from a pile of them -- through narrowed eyes. Vorador's first instinct was to seize the useful object away from Raziel, to keep it for himself. But that would mean letting go of either the cloth he already had, or Janos -- and he would do neither.

The growl cut off as Raziel, casually, picked up where Janos had left off -- the alcohol was blessedly cool and crisp-feeling against the skin of Vorador's shoulder and back. It tingled over the scarred places, and the slow swipe of the fabric took with it the tacky-sticky sensation of matted blood and dust. Eyes half lidded in pleasure, Vorador missed the moment when Raziel folded the fabric over, found a clean corner, and transferred his attentions to Janos.

He realized what was happening quickly enough, though. Narrow new fangs barred in a ferocious snarl, Vorador tugged his protesting prize closer, as if to drag Janos behind him, to shield him from Raziel's interest with his own body. Then Raziel lifted the bit of cloth away from Janos' arm... to reveal bright, sky-blue skin, now unmarred and perfect. The fledgling blinked, managing in his shock to do nothing while the powerful dark one adjusted his Sire's garments, arranging the Ancient in a far more pleasing order than Vorador had yet managed. And then, unbelievably, the dark one stopped, made no further attempt to remove Janos from his grasp.

Thinking furiously, every movement cautious and slow, suspicion and distrust writ plainly on his face, Vorador lifted his Ancient's captive wrist... and offered Janos' forearm to the dark one, tilted so the bruise there was clearly visible.

Oblivious, Janos spoke, maintaining composure so well as he was able, as the creature manhandled him. "How... is this possible? Was an element absent from his lodging? There was vitae aplenty from the fountain, the basins of water, shelter, even books --" a shame what Vorador had done to the books "--what else does the... does Vorador need?"

Behind Janos, Anani visibly winced, and Raziel found himself hard-pressed not to do the same. "The blood-fountain aided greatly, I am sure, and shelter is, of course, necessary. But water, as you have seen--" He lifted the cloth, ghosting it lightly over the thin trail of a burn scar upon Vorador's clutching hand, "--is as dangerous as fire." Moreso, in truth. Eyeing the pinned limb that Vorador had profferred to him, Raziel thought for a moment. Then, moving slowly, he raised his other hand, opening the pocket-space in which he kept weapons, and withdrew a vial that shimmered vibrant blue.

Uncorking the healing draught, he lifted it toward the arm. Careful to avoid Vorador's clutching talons, he dumped a generous portion of its contents over the bruise. It was a wasteful expenditure of a potion; but as such holy magic would heal only Ancient or human flesh, it was not as precious as it might have been. And, as the bruise faded away into the unmarred azure hue of healthy skin, and Janos exhaled a little in visible relief--Raziel could not find it in himself to regret it. "He needs ... companionship. Attention and guidance ... and distraction," he added wryly as Vorador touched the now-pristine arm in wonder, then transferred his attention to the vial, his golden gaze narrowed and thoughtful. "We will be able to assist you in this," he continued, lest Janos think that Raziel was foisting this unwanted and bloodthirsty burden solely upon the Ancient's shoulders. "But as you have seen, Vorador will battle any creature if he believes you will be taken from him."

Janos frowned a little, mouth tight, as he watched Vorador examine his skin minutely. The potion had cleared the soreness well -- and though using such expensive magic on so minor a wound was a waste, he did not protest. "Is he to... accompany me at all times, then?" A veritable nightmare, that would be -- not only did it appear that Vorador required no sleep, he also promptly killed any humans he met. How would Janos conduct the rituals and meetings that were his responsibility? What could he delegate safely? "Or will it be necessary to be conf... Vorador!"

The fledgling had dropped his stained piece of cloth and reached instead to twist the vial, still half-full, from Raziel's grasp. When surrender was not immediately forthcoming, Vorador hissed in pique. "Mine!"

Well experienced in the ways of fledglings, Vorador's sudden greed came as no surprise to Raziel. He gave that reaching hand a stinging smack, rendered even more painful by the hard chitin and inhuman speed of the taloned hand that delivered it.

 _Dangerous!!_ he sent to the fledgling, the warning short and as sharp as a stab to the gut. And before Vorador could grab again, or try to attack him, Raziel deliberately tilted the vial ... and let a few drops fall upon the skin of his own wrist. He hissed--more for dramatic effect than the intensity of the pain--as the potion seared new wounds into the flesh, the holy magic destroying the undead flesh indiscriminately. His healing ability ensured that the tiny wounds would last only moments, but hopefully the lesson would last longer.

Making sure he had Vorador's attention, Raziel sent a warning image of the young vampire's own skin--then, slowly, proffered the vial. Most fledges, unconcerned with the vagaries of cause and effect, would have little heeded such a demonstration. It remained to be seen if Vorador was different in this as well.

Vorador, eyes narrowed, plucked the vial from Raziel's hand with fingers that still stung. The vial, like the rune-wrapped bloodvials, was reinforced with a webwork of steel that it might better stand being bashed about in battle -- or by a fledgling's handling. Once it was firmly in his grasp, however, Vorador snorted in disdain. The dark one, no matter his power, was surely mad. Blue liquid was clearly best used to polish blue creatures; it surprised Vorador not at all that the substance was of little use on white skin. It was startling, however, that it should cause damage -- could the substance, should Vorador obtain more, be employed as a weapon?

But he had other plans for his present acquisition. Angling Janos a little further from the dark one's unpredictable madness, Vorador studied his Ancient. Most of the other marks his prize had accumulated over the past days were obscured, but Vorador remembered them clearly.

"...And what," Janos continued, as he was moved about at the creature's whim, "of his aversion to... gah!" The fledgling, vial tucked carefully into his palm, was jerking at his clothing, unraveling the laces of his robe.

"I believe Vorador wishes to heal your other injuries as well," Raziel remarked, doing his best to suppress his amusement. Truly, Vorador's development was remarkable--it was as if he had bypassed almost entirely the first and most bestial stages of a fledgling's development. To have such a mastery of reason and logic --if not impulse control -- only a few nights into his rebirth was truly extraordinary. Raziel was reminded of the tales he had heard from Kain of his own dark awakening at the hands of Mortanius....

Vorador was doing an effective, if messy, job of stripping Janos. Before matters could proceed too far out of hand, Raziel reached out to Whisper, _We can stop him, if you wish--but I do not believe he means harm. Or you may order him to cease--we will enforce your commands as necessary._

The maneuver was a complicated one, for Vorador had to juggle both his secure grip on Janos and the vial, which was uncorked, and could not be overturned without spilling. The robe tangled and twisted around Janos' wings; Anani stepped smoothly aside as Janos flexed the appendages in protest, or for balance. The Ancients' physiology seemed to concentrate strength in the flight muscles, and while the blue beings were weak overall, their wings could deliver a buffeting blow. "Vorador," Janos said, lifting his hand, his calm strained, "enough; this is very --"

Vorador paused, examined the problem briefly, and then fisted both hands in the fabric of Janos' garment and ripped, leaving Janos in loose trousers and little else. Bared, the Ancient's torso and shoulder were mottled with five-fingered bruises, half-healed and grayish, like the shadows of rain across the sky. There were scrapes in places, too, and bereft of bandage, Janos held his right arm -- the palm of which was still lined with healing scar tissue -- closely against his side. The injuries would have been nothing more than nuisance for even a very young Razielim, would have been repaired within minutes. But the Ancients were a far more tender breed. Vorador frowned, the complexities of triage beyond his present ability. Where could he most effectively deploy the remainder of the potion?

Raziel's gaze darkened as he took in the extent of the damage that Vorador had done. Clearly, Janos would need a protector against his fledgling's strength, regardless of whether Vorador took Raziel's warnings to heart.

Still, thwarting Vorador now would serve no purpose. And so Raziel stepped forward, catching Vorador's hand, and drawing it to the injured arm. If the potion was to be wasted, at least he could ensure it was put where it might be of most use! And when Vorador, after a quizzical and somewhat suspicious look, began cautiously sprinkling the vial's contents upon that maltreated flesh, Raziel turned his attentions to the rags the fledgling still wore. Using Vorador's preoccupation, he returned the favor Vorador had granted Janos and stripped the begrimed cloth from the younger vampire's torso, cutting it away where necessary. The process was not simple, of course--Vorador was far more vocal about his objections than Janos had been--but settled into some semblance of calm when Anani took up another cloth to clean the newly-revealed skin.

 _He is a curious fledge indeed, my lord_ , Anani Whispered, observing Vorador's every action with a keen eye. _Unmistakably young, but ... I have never heard of any creature so quick to learn what it is to be a vampire._

 _I have heard of only one,_ was Raziel's reply, and their eyes caught for a moment in understanding. * _Kain_.*

It was strange, having Vorador under his hands like this, the legendary figure so young he didn't even understand what damage Anani's talons could inflict so very easily. The fledgling's nascent aura felt like that of no other vampire in the Razielim's wide experience. So much in the future must surely hinge on these very moments.... Anani watched as Vorador seared himself on the enchanted healing potion as he attempted to spread it over Janos' skin; the fledgling hissed furiously, as if the Kainites were to blame for the burn, then his gaze fell to the scrap of cloth Anani held. With a sharp snarl, the neonate wrenched it from his hands -- Anani let him have it -- and then used the rag to spread the potion where he pleased. Anani's Whisper, as he bent to pick up another cloth, was bemused. _If Kain was equally so arrogant or so greedy as a fledgling, 'tis little wonder the two had their differences. Vorador was markedly singleminded in pursuit of his aims, to be sure._

As the healing draught sank into his skin, Janos relaxed by fractions, his expression one of tired relief. He would deal apace with the challenges of the next few hours -- for there would surely be many of them -- as they arose, but for the moment, he could only savor the relative quiet, and the surcease of pain.

 _Such things shall remain a mystery, I fear ... but you may be correct._ Of all the times to which Raziel had traveled, the era in which Kain's assassination and subsequent rebirth at the hands of Mortanius had occurred had not been one of them. The closest he had ever come was at the moment of the breaking of the Pillars. Even that had been at a distance, and he had been rather ... distracted by his own concerns.

There was still the possibility of traveling back to that moment, of course. Still, some events were too important to chance meddling--and Kain's emergence as a vampire was one of them.

The younger Kain that had been brought to Haven, on the other hand, had been no fledgling, for all his relative inexperience. Yet his possessive nature was evident, even so, and Raziel could well imagine the two elder vampires coming to blows. Looking at the new-made Vorador before them, he could not help but feel a dark amusement bubbling up within him, perhaps brought on by his weariness. "Yes," he said in the tongue of the Empire, laying a taloned hand in benediction upon Vorador's dishevelled head. Vorador twisted, snarling at him over his shoulder, and Raziel felt an ironic smile tugging at his lips. "Yes, Vorador--you will not be rid of us so easily. We will teach you and Janos both, just as you once did Kain, and Kain with myself. And thus the twistings of our respective destinies will begin again ...."

Uncomprehending of Raziel's words and wholly ignorant of his place in the river of time, but perhaps garnering something from the darksome promise in Raziel's tone, Vorador drew an arm around Janos' waist, pressing the Ancient closer with proprietary care. For a moment, the two lines of vampires -- Ancient and newly made; so different yet both ultimately doomed -- stood poised upon the very axis of history.

And then Janos laid his palm flat upon the pale skin of Vorador's chest, over his unbeating heart. He threaded a mental touch into the confused and turbulent mindscape before him. Easy, Vorador. _There is no threat here, neither to you -- nor to me._ As if surprised, Vorador looked to him, grip loosening. Something of tension seemed to leave his frame, and he bent his head, inhaling the scent of the Ancient's hair. Soft breath feathers, black and glossy, stirred over his skin as Janos folded his broad wings around them both.


End file.
